


When You Know I Can't

by Lessandra



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Crossover, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Jossed, M/M, Other, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, but i am not a cruel person, so everything will probably work out, to put it mildly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:53:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 69,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lessandra/pseuds/Lessandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Teen Wolf/Hunger Games AU.</p><blockquote>
  <p>Scott isn’t sure what his defense against the Capitol is. He looks like he has stumbled into this high-and-mighty company by chance, looks like an ordinary citizen of District Five. It’s just wishful thinking, though — no one sees him as anything but a victor. He’s a piece of the puzzle that will never fit back into the life of his District. Derek keeps telling him to accept that, but Scott isn’t sure when he finally will.</p>
</blockquote><br/>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Teen Wolf/Hunger Games fusion.  
> The setting is the world of Panem, but I'm trying to keep our favorite characters and their stories as close to canon as possible, bearing in mind seasons 1 & 2.

The morning fog tastes of desperation.

Scott can feel it when he comes out on the back terrace to watch the edge of the forest, the cold of the air contrasting with the steaming mug of coffee in his hands. He’d like nothing more than to pretend this day is no different, but the truth is—he’s been counting down to it for months. He’d like to pretend he’s the only one to feel like this, but he knows that every man and woman and child have been doing exactly the same thing.

So he and the other people are left to pretend something else: rejoicing and celebrating when hardly anyone in all of Panem is in the mood for it. Certainly not anyone in District Five. Some think they have it okay here because their number is high enough on the list but they don’t. They’re as hunched under the weight of the Capitol as all the others, supporting its gargantuan needs with gritted teeth and sweat on their brows, while the power plants poison their air.

Scott is looking out on the last preserved forest in the whole District. These are the outskirts his house is standing at. It is a privilege others aren’t as lucky to share.

When he returns into the house, his mother accepts the half-emptied mug from him, her house-warm fingers covering his cool ones for a moment, and their eyes meet over their hands in silent reassurance, a promise that it will all be fine. It never is, but a lot passes as ‘fine’ in their chafing way of life.

He goes up to his room that feels empty and lonely even though he has lived here for months stacking up to years; even though his bed is unmade and he left it just half an hour ago. It’s this house—a modern, artsy, complex piece of architecture filled with all things Capitol that doesn’t feel like a part of here and doesn’t feel like a part of _him_. The only thing about it that’s home is his mother. The house itself is just a spoil of war.

Getting under lukewarm shower he thinks that four years ago on this very day he was a different boy in a different house, wearing much cheaper clothes that seemed too fine to him nonetheless, scrubbing off the dirt and the smoke and the smell of the woods to look presentable, all cold with fear. Today he dresses in the cheapest clothes he owns, and they too still look too fine.

They walk to the main square almost in total silence, having non-conversations.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” his mother says with a kind smile and means _I’m glad you aren’t having nightmares anymore_.

“I stayed up long with Stiles,” he replies. “We aren’t boys anymore.” And he means, with exploding relief, _he’s turned 19 this year, he can’t be Reaped any longer_.

The square is bright with the festive touch the Capitol officials have enriched it with, but there is lurking grimness around the edges, in secret frowns and strained smiles. People feign a celebratory mood, but really the day of the Reaping is just like today’s morning has promised: foggy and desperate.

He parts with his mother at the edge of the square, after a long embrace and a feel of her lips on his temple. It’s the last they will see of each other in months unless she will manage to sneak in close to the train once more, which is doubtful. He watches her disappear into the crowd of other adults that surround the children of the District, most of them worried parents and siblings. She looks ordinary, and hardly anyone recognizes the mother of a victor. But Scott can never lose track of her, his eyes always find her in a heartbeat.

He makes himself turn away and works his way around the crowd towards the stage. The mayor’s already up there, his polite pretend-smile a little more convincing than that of the most people. Beside him is Finstock, the Capitol escort, his black hair trimmed to look like devil’s horns. It suits him: he’s loud-mouthed, over-eager and a little insane, and hides his worry for tributes under an avalanche of reaming their asses out.

Others aren’t there yet, so despite Finstock’s invigorating waving Scott doesn’t go up and waits for them in the shadows. It has been a while…

He has no appropriate word for what they are. _Friends_ , perhaps, yes, but not in the sense most would understand it. Their connection takes roots in the Games, and one would suppose that it’s a bad beginning for anything. They don’t talk outside their joined annual punishment—of suffering through the Capitol, through the mentoring of young boys and girls, building their hopes up, then leaving with ashen disappointment when they don’t make it. But Scott cannot imagine people who’d know him better, who’d understand him even a fraction as well as these two.

“Scott.” The sound of his own name being spoken enters his thoughts, and there they are.

Derek is fresh from the Capitol, but you won’t know that by looking at him, clad in defiant black—a bland and morbid and _normal_ black that doesn’t live long in the city of splendored colors and glimmer, not unless it’s peppered with fuchsia and ultramarine. Beside him is Peter who lives in their house here in between of being summoned to the Capitol. Scott doesn’t actually know if they offered to build Derek a separate place after he had won—so he calls it _their_ house, the Hale property, even though Derek hasn’t set foot there for longer than Scott knows him. Peter’s there alone, and Scott tries not to think how he spends these months; he’s kinda afraid to imagine.

Peter is a recluse, and seems to be not all there, but today he looks neat as a pin. His is a defensive mechanism of another sort: while people are looking at his armor of velvet and silk and gloss, no one’s staring into his face long enough to notice how much of him is gone on the inside. They don’t know like Scott does that he must have spent half of yesterday staring into the wall of his bedroom, or wandering the woods; and the day before; and before. They don’t know that beneath the shine—he’s broken.

Scott isn’t sure what his own defense against the Capitol or the tributes is. He looks like he has stumbled into this high-and-mighty company by chance, looks like an ordinary citizen of District Five. It’s just wishful thinking, though—no one sees him as anything but a victor. He’s a piece of the puzzle that will never fit back into the life of his District. Derek keeps telling him to accept that, but Scott isn’t sure when he finally will.

They stop before stepping onto the stage, exchanging bleak, heavy and aloof stares: what’s about to go down is never happy and never easy, and Scott hears this buzzing white noise between his ears. Every year he thinks he won’t sit through this. Every year he fears he will see someone he knows walking up the stairs onto the stage. It has happened twice already.

It doesn’t happen to Derek and Peter; they don’t know anyone anymore, having alienated themselves from their home District. Derek keeps telling him to do the same, but he can’t, although he fears a day will come when he won’t be able to afford refusing.

He sits himself down between Derek and Finstock. Two seats beside Peter are left empty. One belongs to Marcus who has drunk himself into oblivion. He no longer comes, and, by Finstock’s recommendation, the Capitol no longer makes him: he’s useless, embarrassing and only wastes their money. No one wants to remember a victor like that. No one wants to acknowledge that this is what they become.

The other seat is for Joan, but she’s probably on the train already. She is harmless, so she is still made to attend every year, even though she has also all but vanished inside her head… 

_When Scott enters the Games, he knows close to nothing about the mentors. He learns half of it on the way to the Capitol from Chryssa, who is actually not devastated to be picked and cannot stop talking._

_From what he can discern, her life in the District was pretty ordinary, but she is one of those adolescents who think their parents are monstrous and they deserve something more special than their share. Thus, she seems to think that being picked as a tribute is her proverbial stranger-knocking-on-the-door-to-reveal-you-were-made-for-greatness deal. She thinks she’s smarter than the rest of the world, and has it all figured out. This trait of hers baffles Scott to the very end._

_Scott knows there were four victors, and thinks they are all supposed to train them…_

_Then Marcus doesn’t show. He’s not formally relieved of his duties yet, and is Finstock’s annual headache for refusing to come. But he’d rather have alcohol slowly kill him._

_Joan is the Forty-something Hunger Games’ victor. Chryssa talks about her a lot—and that should have been Scott’s first clue—how she was brilliant, accomplished and a credit to her District, but then lost it after winning, became taciturn and cold-hearted and vicious._

_It turns out soon enough that Chryssa has wanted to train separately from the start, and has been talking Scott’s ear off with defamatory things about the woman to put him off her before making a solid and determined claim on Joan herself. She easily wins her over, and so it is decided._

_That is how Scott gets stuck with Derek Hale. Derek, who is the most tight-lipped and callous of all the mentors. Derek, who spends most of the time hating Scott, while Chryssa and Joan bond._

_Scott knows there is supposed to be a Peter Hale, a relation. He even hopes (with secret glee) that given his family ties with Derek, he will choose to train Scott as well. But Peter spends most of his days in the hospital these days; he’s sick. In between he comes by their sector, wandering halls with an insane smile and taking away from Derek’s focus. Which was Chryssa’s plan all along._  

   
   
 _These are the 69th Hunger Games. Joan is busy adoring Chryssa, while Derek and Peter are busy hating each other. Scott thinks he’s gonna die._

***

 

They say, the Hale family is _cursed_. It’s the Careers who raise generations of tributes, sending off all of their family members into battle, year after year. Sons follow parents, sisters follow brothers. In their district, this is all unheard of. They are District Five, they have no Careers. Still, the Hale family has managed to have three tributes in the Games. Two of them survived.

There was Peter Hale, the trickster who all but rose from the dead to win. He has managed to do the impossible and is bearing the scars to prove it.

Then came his niece, Laura—she volunteered in place of a sickly terrified twelve-year-old, a child they all knew but no one thought to defend except for her. She almost made it back, too. Almost. But not quite.

And then, two years later, came her brother. He was a dark horse, an uncertainty among that year’s pick—bearing the name of two favored tributes, yet having the charisma of neither. There wasn’t a lot of hope for him to last long, or so Scott hears (he cannot quite imagine such a time)—not at first. But after his first kill Derek turned vicious, brutal, killing six people on his way to victory. A quarter of the total number—in no way a small feat. All of them were Careers.

Peter finds the whole “curse” business amusing—but then again, there’s little which doesn’t tragically amuse him anymore. Derek, in his turn, believes. He believes and stands alone, because he fears that if he were to bring a child into this world, twelve years gone by that child would know the horrors of the Reaping first-hand. And the Curse would pick him. So Derek vows not to offer any more of his blood as a sacrifice to the Capitol, and thinks he’s so singular in this decision, but Scott knows that many reach the same conclusion. And watching their children enter the Reapings year after year, many wish they’d have arrived at that decision a long time ago. In a matter of one hour, two families will be grieving not making that choice.

As everyone settles down, the mayor stands up to deliver the annual speech about unity and integrity and peace and accord and every other thing that the Hunger Games are not. It doesn’t change from year to year by much, and Scott tunes it out, his head filled with the ringing buzz instead. It is a murmur, expressive of condemnation, lifted from the crowd by the wind. It is the rush of blood inside his skull that forms an impenetrable vacuum. Concentrating on his breathing, Scott searches the crowd for his mother’s face.

He finds her answering stare quickly, equally blazing. She’s standing beside Stiles and his dad, and Scott feels relieved that they have sought each other out in today’s mass of people, and she is not left standing alone, consoling some poor woman who is losing her child to the Games and her heart breaking because she knows exactly how it feels. Stiles nods at him too, encouragingly, and Scott nods right back with a half-smile. This will all be over soon, he tells himself.

The customary naming of the victors concludes the mayor’s speech, and the crowd answers with disjointed sour applause. They are proud of their victors, Scott knows they are, but condoning anything the Capitol offers also kills something in every one of them. They want to deliver no encouragement.

As the mayor finally slumps back into his seat, evidently relieved that his part for the day is almost done, Finstock jumps up eagerly to take his place in front of the microphone. “Good morning, District Five!” he hollers at the crowd, grinning bizarrely. He waves and turns his deranged smile into every camera in a grotesque impersonation of Caesar Flickerman, as if there were people cheering for him. The square is almost silent, but Finstock could care less. Perhaps the Games have made him a little mad as well.

“Happy Hunger Games!”

 _And may the odds be ever in your favor_ , Scott mouths the words with him, half ironically, and he knows that Peter and Derek do too. The words are ringing out in the head of every teenage boy and girl here right now, each of them hoping the odds will be on their side today and they don’t get Reaped.

The odds are always against them.

Without further ado, Finstock dips his hand into one of the two bowls filled with the paper slips. Scott feels with his skin the breath reverberating through the crowd, air being sucked in, and the complete stillness and silence that always precede the inevitable. The name, being spoken like a stab of a knife.

“Erica Reyes.”

There is a smothered whimper from the back of the crowd; a mother. The girls part obediently, broadcasting sorrow and guilty relief as they make way for a tall pale girl. She is one of the elder ones, which is always a relief. Scott recognizes her face—he must have seen her once or twice in the market, or perhaps at school. It will add to his personal demons, but that is his to deal with: _he always recognizes them_.

She walks towards the stage, staggering on unbending legs. She’s half-petrified with fear, and Finstock is grinning at her with what he probably thinks is encouragement. He yanks her hand high in the air, repeating her name, presenting her, but this is all for the cameras and the Capitol rather than the District. He doesn’t ask anyone to greet her with applause, or anything. No one will clap, and he has been with them long enough to learn that.

Reaching into the other bowl, Finstock grabs a fistful of paper slips, letting them fall, one by one, until only one remains to be chosen. It elicits a soft groan from the boys, because that there is a cruelty of chance at work: whoever’s name he’s going to read next could have been on one of the discarded papers instead.

He unwraps the slip slowly, and the second name is announced.

“Isaac Lahey.”

There is no consequent sound, no parent crying out. The boys rumble, looking at each other, and Scott leans forward: in a District as small as theirs everybody knows everybody, there are no strangers, and it is peculiar and discouraging to be an odd man out who is recognized by no one.

But finally there is a someone, elbowing his ways through the crowding boys, earning more curious gazes than ones of sympathy. He is also one of the older ones, lanky and inhibited, climbing up the stage with a slight shiver vibrating through his frame.

Finstock grapples him eagerly, pulling him and Erica closer, grinning maniacally into the crowd and into the cameras, his own glee a response ingrained by the Capitol but in reality no less of an act. Then the moment comes when he asks for volunteers.

Derek lowers his head, inhaling sharply, and almost growls as his hands ball up into fists. There hasn’t been a volunteer for twelve years. The last one was Laura. And it always infuriates Derek to the point of hatred that they are all cowards, and his sister was not and paid for it. Scott reaches out and rests his palm on Derek’s white knuckles—he shakes his hand off in irritation, looking away.

The mayor steps forward again, as the District observes its tributes of the year, the mass of people rocking in disgruntlement. He reads the Treaty of Treason over the discontented hum of the crowd, as is required of him by tradition and law. Scott tunes it all out, his eyes trained on the two unlucky ones, seizing them up.

They always hope for the older ones, but it’s a small consolation if it is one at all. Isaac and Erica look faint and breakable. Scott tries not to think much of it, because so did he. Both try to act tough, but they are the mentors, they can see right through it. They need to.

Scott notices that Erica has a slight tremor in her limbs that has nothing to do with nerves but everything with a weakness the Games will exploit, tear into viciously until she comes undone unless they help her get rid of it. He also sees defiance and anger in her eyes. He sees nothing in Isaac’s; the boy is completely closed-off. Which may prove both an advantage and a drawback.

He has to recognize these things instantly and plan ahead. The journey before these two is a long and perilous one. It’s the mentors’ job now to make the most of them and ensure that at least one tribute journeys _back_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be as small as the previous one, and unexpectedly it's five time its size. I have problems with cutting myself short.
> 
> Also, yay for Season 3. It seems like Sterek has been diminished to almost a null, but instead we've got Scisaac that is being fan-serviced exactly like we've been reading and writing. :)))

Erica is nervous. Biting-her-thumb, rolling-a-butter-knife-back-and-forth-on-the-table, tapping-her-heel _nervous_. The hurried clicking of her shoe raps almost in tact with the muffled beat of the train wheels—but the _‘almost’_ part, with an odd sound here and there falling out of tune, is grating on Isaac’s nerves.

He is mostly calm, and he probably shouldn’t be, but his life has been unraveling without his ability to change anything long enough that being Reaped hardly makes a difference either way. His future has been stretching bleakly all the way to the horizon for a while, littered with inescapable woes. The Games are just another blow fate delivers onto him, and he’s become accustomed to taking life’s beatings, then picking himself up again.

Except this time he shouldn’t delude himself into believing he’d be walking away from this. It is the final line. Still, he is struggling to find a reason to care. Maybe he’s just too confounded to allow himself the tragic realization of the mess he’s trapped in.

The train car is long, sleek, like a silver bullet. Hanging on one of the walls is a large glossy monitor, almost the size of the big screens annually brought over to the District from the Capitol to televise the Reapings. The screen in the car is broadcasting the other Districts undergoing the selection. Later, there will be a recap, and for the first time Isaac is steeling himself to watch it.

He has never before understood the need for repeat broadcasts: all the ferocious smiles, the egocentric volunteering and the disheartening lack thereof, the tears of those who aren’t willing. The Capitol doesn’t miss a second of this grotesque exhibition, and them, in their District, often do not watch it the first time around, not if they can help it, so why bother showing it the second time around? Then again, the top of Panem is cocooned in oblivious elation, enough to be insensitive to any type of cruelty existing in the Hunger Games and take amusement from it again and again. Tonight him and Erica will be forced to participate in their vicious celebration of death, watching it with the entire Capitol and examining the competition with no shred of remorse—the first toll their conscious will have to pay if they want to survive this.

Right now they are showing District Seven undergoing its Reaping. It is often considered one of the weaker competitors, yet they had a winner two Games back. No one is to be underestimated.

Isaac tries to imagine himself inside the Capitol-made field and fails. He has a grey life, with an uneventful job working the graveyard. He isn’t built to wield swords and spears, has never won a fight in his life. He’s a spectral presence in his own life, nothing outstanding about him at all.

He tries to relax on the couch that is so soft _(too soft)_ he feels he’s sinking into it, tucks his legs under himself and concentrates on the screen.

The girl on the stage is agile and lithe. He can imagine her setting traps in the thick foliage of trees and dropping on her prey like a _chimera_ mutt. The boy is a mountainous lumberjack, which is common for Seven. Isaac pictures an axe in his hand felling a number of his opponents. What is more important, he can imagine both of them as winners, strong and unwavering. _How is he supposed to compete with that?_

The door to the car opens abruptly, startling them into assuming more appropriate postures. Isaac straightens up, setting his feet down and unfolding his ungraceful lankiness while trying to appear unassuming at the same time.

The past winners, the ones holding the answer to the questions and doubts inside his mind, enter one by one.

Erica ceases her fussing and turns her face up eagerly. She is wearing an expression of blind hope, like she thinks she can absorb bits and pieces of their skill, their wisdom, their _luck_ just by looking at them, by breathing the same air. He waits silently and cautiously: the do-not-speak-until-spoken-to is deeply ingrained in every bruise and bloody cut and bone fracture he has suffered from his father.

Erica and Isaac are strangers to these people, but the mentors are _known_ to them. The Capitol makes sure everyone remembers Its winners. It is the way things are: the Hunger Games have long since stopped being about _bread_ and are only about _circuses_ now.

Winning buys your life. But most of all, it buys you fame.

Out of the four Derek Hale alone looks like he could re-enter the Games and still come out a victor. But he is brutal and strong, and no amount of advice can help Isaac become anything remotely like him.

The woman, Joan Priestley, walks past the two tributes like they’re not there—or maybe like she’s not here—seats herself in the furthest corner of the carriage, turning away and staring out the window blankly.

The youngest, Scott McCall, sits directly opposite of them, but his gaze is wandering, his thoughts traveling elsewhere. Isaac vaguely remembers having seen him around school five or so years back, but it seems like an abyss of time from where they are now. McCall is hardly expected to remember.

The oldest mentor Isaac knows best—Peter Hale, the local lunatic. An eccentric hermit living in a self-imposed isolation. He is blowing cigarette smoke out into the open window, and doesn’t look half as crazy as the hearsay paints him. But Isaac knows everything about the deceit of a sympathetic face. He makes no assumptions.

Derek Hale busies himself with a drink, pouring it generously, and the acerbic scent makes Isaac cringe, uninvited memories of his restless past—of kindness exploding into rage and painful black and purple coloring his cheekbones—rearing their ugly heads at a moment where he least wants them to. He cannot stand liquor, certainly not in the middle of the afternoon and not imbibed by authority figures (whose authority starts to rapidly dissipate in this scenario anyway).

The four of them treat Isaac and Erica like non-persons, like inanimate objects, and they exchange perplexed anxious glances, discovering mirroring misgivings in each other. Erica starts fidgeting again, her knee jumping up and down frantically, the _tap-tap-tap_ of her shoe becoming the loudest sound in the car. Then Derek Hale slams his emptied glass onto the counter on one of her taps and says,

“Stop.”

Erica halts and shrinks a little, her eyes huge and puffed from crying.

Derek Hale slowly turns, finally granting them his full radioactive attention. He has an odd face, a mixture of both enthralling and frightening. There is something imposing, charismatic about him, which must play into his hand well when he deals with sponsors, but if you look deeper (which Isaac does against his better judgment), there is also an insurmountable capability for violence, and a memory of death.

“You want to train together?” he asks bluntly, his eyes piercing into their foreheads like he wants to know their answers before they voice them, scan their thoughts and discern the truths from the lies.

They exchange nonplussed, intimidated glances again. “Is there another choice?” Erica asks cautiously.

“You can choose a separate mentor right now, or even change your mind later,” Peter Hale speaks. He has a silky voice, like a snake slithering through tall grass, dangerous and mesmerizing.

Derek’s eyes continue to bore into the two of them, urging them to make a choice right _now_ and _stick_ to it. Isaac cannot bear his intensity and drops his eyes onto the carpet, finding it much easier to address when talking. “I don’t care either way,” he mutters. The carpet is the color of burgundy, of blood, and looks more expensive than his entire house.

There is a heavy sigh with an undertone of exasperation, and then Erica says, “Together is fine.” When Isaac looks up abruptly to catch her eyes, he finds them filled with compassion. He feels a flash of anger that she should presume to pity him. Bristling, he grits his teeth and looks further down, his chin almost pressing into his sternum. People always make assumptions about his character based on a few incomplete pieces of false information that circulate around him, then draw their sanctimonious conclusions. He has not become better at tolerating it.

“Good,” Derek Hale interrupts his train of thought. “That is your first lesson.” And it sounds like a threat instead of an instruction. “ _Alone_ , you are _vulnerable_ out there in the field,” he points his finger dramatically. “Some tributes get it, assemble into pairs or groups, partner up, but it only lasts so long. Sooner or later they become every man for themselves. You _cannot_ afford to fight each other when there are twenty-two more of you. But if you trust each other, you have a chance to survive longer.”

Isaac narrows his eyes apprehensively. “What if we said, ‘separately’?”

“Then you would have already _lost_ ,” Derek snarls. Isaac and Erica both cower back from the abrupt lunge, but Scott McCall somehow manages to already be on his feet, resting a placating hand on the other mentor’s shoulder.

“Enough, Derek,” he says insistently, drawing him back. The older man looks at his hand like it’s personally offending him, and McCall steps away, raising both palms complacently. But the desired effect has been reached and Derek doesn’t pressure them any longer. It was a test, his question and his outburst, and they must have passed.

Instead he picks up the remote and flips the channels until he reaches a paused footage, clearly prepared beforehand for the dramatic effect. He hits play and indicates for them to watch.

Isaac doesn’t know what Games these are and it doesn’t matter. There are two tributes on a rocky landscape, both helpfully identified by their Districts in this documentary, compiled post-factum, as is always done after every finale. District Two has a sword in his hands. There is a vicious gleam—of his blade or maybe his blade-like smile—and the sword swooshes down. He slices his opponent with a force so brutal it cuts the other boy in half, leaving parts of his entrails on the weapon. Two wipes it against the grass with shaky hands, a look of pungent disgust on his face, ready to puke.

“Look, _look_!” Derek snaps mercilessly, when Erica averts her eyes, excruciatingly pale. His hand rests on her neck, not injuring but forcing her to turn and watch. “This is what awaits you. This is why you need each other. The only way to fight them is _together_. And we will teach you how.” He looks at the other mentors with supreme confidence. “But you have got to be in it with us,” he demands.

Isaac suspects this is his idea of a pep talk, something to show them the stakes and give them the taste of what is to come. It elicits fear and helplessness in him rather than a desire to act. Maybe that is a result in itself, their inability to rise to the occasion. Maybe someone else reacted differently.

Isaac wants to believe in Derek Hale. But he is also very much aware that no matter how great a teacher he might appear to be, in ten years that he has been mentoring he has ensured only one victory: for Scott McCall. And there is nothing to suggest that Isaac would have his luck.

 

***

 

The Capitol sweeps them into its voluptuous _bizarre_.

The amount of decorum transcends from merely fashionable into tasteless; it is bold and on fire, it is forged by a soul that is mad. Yet no one seems to think it strange, a city pervaded by dumb glee that makes exhibitionism a cult.

The Capitol is a syringe of _aberrant_ , suffusing everyone who is exposed to it with flare and sparkle and translucency and glitter. It has every appliance to induce pleasure, and its citizens seem to exist in a state of artificially achieved exaltation. The process of beautifying reaches the point where attractive reverts back into ugly. The morals are base under the pretense of borders broken in the name of tolerance.

Isaac cannot imagine normal people, District-born mentors, being forced to live in this state of perpetual carnival, and he begins to somewhat doubt the soundness of Derek Hale’s sanity if the man voluntarily chooses this world over the safe and comfortable seclusion of his own District.

Here, he is surrounded by bald women and apricot-haired men, silicone eyelashes and ultraviolet tattoos that look like brands. There are people with limbs stretched and elongated, crushed and shortened, broken and bent—all to make them look _something_ , although that something certainly isn’t _pretty_.

There _are_ beautiful people here, but prevailing are the lewd ones, the disturbing and the disturbed, the peculiar, the macabre, the appalling, and those who elicit nothing but repulsion.

This is the next price of admission to the Capitol they have to pay: dignity.

District Five usually looks decent, at times even impressive, undoubtedly owing that to Derek Hale, who’s permanently residing in the Capitol and makes enough useful friends to receive handy designers instead of novices with “ground-breaking” ideas. Isaac knows that he should dread his impending demise. Yet when the groomers look down at him like vultures after having scrubbed him into immaculate condition, the only thing he is afraid of is walking away from it with cerulean hair and opalescent stones tattooed into his cheekbones.

The cleaning process reminds him of the final ministrations people receive at the funeral house: being sponged, clothed, perfumed and all the other silly things that are for the living, not the dead. He is meticulously cleansed, oiled, trimmed and about to be coated in makeup that will render the previous task pointless as far as Isaac is concerned. He cannot shake the thought that he is a corpse being prettied up before burial. _What use is the ceremony if he’ll fail the training? What use is the training if he is going to die anyway?_

His stylist looks like he has been doused in flour: he is dressed in white, his skin is bleached, his hair and even eyelashes are dyed the color of alabaster. He is prim and precise and silent and cares nothing for Isaac’s opinion. He comes in and does his job without offering Isaac a mirror, instilling in him a slight terror of what has been done to him. He doesn’t get to see his reflection until they are back on the fifth floor of the Training Center that serves as their home. Until then he is captured in powerless ignorance, the mentors unhelpfully offering little comment on their appearance.

Isaac derives small comfort in the fact that Erica looks fine. Truthfully, she looks kinda beautiful, with her dull hair sleeked into a shimmering cascade, the makeup transforming many aspects of her face he has considered plain. Back home they would have considered her look outrageous, but in the Capitol she looks almost boring. He hopes for the same level of boring decency in himself and dreads that the similarity is too much—he has seen enough gender-unspecific males for the past few hours, wearing lipstick and nail polish and hair extensions of colors he has no name for, and abhors the idea of looking like this.

He gets to reclaim some of his confidence after the tribute parade. In the mirror he looks like many things, half of them unflattering and none of them Isaac Lahey, but mostly he looks dressed in black and silver, his skin glittering in dim light, uncomfortable, gaunt, but not in horrible taste.

He spends an hour in lukewarm shower, cleaning himself from the oils and powder, smudging eyeliner and glitter, until the only thing in the mirror is Isaac, clean to the point of radiance which is also different from the tattered original, but in a better, acceptable way. In standardized tribute clothes he slumps onto the bed, dripping water onto the pillow from his wet curls.

His dreams are anxious and empty, filled with nothing.

The challenging part begins the next morning.

The exhaustion of the previous day makes Isaac rise much later than he is used to with his job, yet still he doesn’t feel rested. Instead he is groggy, the fear of the Games having settled deep in his bones, chipping away at him even in his sleep.

When he reaches the main room, everyone else is already gathered there. The female mentor is the only one absent, but Isaac senses this is going to be a pattern. Instead, they are joined by Finstock whom he is surprised to witness in uncharacteristic quietude, his booming voice for once not carrying over the whole room. He is accompanied by a young assistant, a boy their age, who feels quite at home here, talking to the mentors confidently, and liberally helping himself to the food. His face seems vaguely familiar to Isaac but he cannot place him.

He slips onto the seat next to Erica who is fidgeting nervously again, and he quickly sees why. The non-person treatment of the last two days continues—the mentors do not sit with them at the table, circling it instead. They talk in hushed voices and throw half-lidded gazes in their direction, stop in their tracks, then resume pacing. Isaac feels like a fowl with a broken wing, being stalked by a pack of wolves.

Derek Hale is the first to break the silence again. Isaac guesses correctly that the others adhere to his superiority. There is a certain air surrounding him—of power that seems daunting—that makes you want to submit. If ever he has seen a presence that fell under the description of ‘dominance’, Derek Hale had it.

“All right. Time to talk about your future in the arena, and what you can do to save yourself.”

Isaac suddenly decides he really doesn’t want to eat anymore. Dropping his fork onto the plate he pushes it away, staring at the mentors in cowed silence.

“It can be any small thing,” McCall encourages them, and Isaac resents him for it—his kind eyes, warm voice and his useless sympathy. “Something you’re good at, a sport, a skill—just so we know where to start.”

“There’s nothing,” Isaac says stubbornly, turning away, perhaps just to spite him and the false cruel _(urgently needful)_ hopes he’s giving.

He can feel Erica’s eyes on him and doesn’t need to look to guess their expression. Then she says, “I’m a gymnast.”

“Any good?” Derek asks dispassionately.

“Decent,” she jerks her chin up proudly, and it sounds like _“Quite,”_ instead.

He snorts at her cheek. “So you’re agile, nimble. That’s good,” he nods.

McCall is giving Erica a thoughtful look, his reaction less appreciative.

“You have a tremor in your left knee. Have you broken it before?” he says pointedly, his face as detached as Derek Hale’s and having the same daunting effect.

Erica’s eyes widen and she blushes fiercely. “It’s nothing,” she snaps. But a weakness that can be exploited is not something the mentors let lie. “I was just anxious,” she says stubbornly. “It’s nerves.”

McCall looks at her kindly, which is somehow worse than pity. “No. It’s not. You’re sick.”

Erica’s lips purse into a tight white line and she shakes her head. Isaac watches her with a startled hesitation—he had no idea anything was wrong at all. “I can win,” she says in a thick voice. It’s not supposed to be a contradiction, but it is.

“I don’t doubt it,” McCall replies calmly. “But you need to understand something, both of you: there’s no point in concealing anything from us. We know everything there is to know. Something like this could lead to a potential failure, and we need to be aware of everything if you want us advising you.”

In the silence that follows Isaac can feel their stares as almost palpable without looking up from the table. They expect more confessions, but he doesn’t have any—he has already stated that’s he’s good at nothing, and that’s the truth.

Erica seems shaken. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with her leg, but it clearly bothers her. Then she inhales sharply, taking a hold of herself, and raises her head defiantly, wiping any trace of compassion he might have had for her in a blink of an eye, as she opens her mouth and says,

“Isaac killed his father.”

 

***

 

_When Isaac is five, he remembers going out into the field and flying a kite with his family. It’s redbluegreenyellow, spots of colors dancing in his eyes, overshadowed by sunlight. His father’s hand is in his curls, ruffling them, and there are creases around his eyes that are always smiles even when his mouth isn’t smiling._

_When Isaac is seven, his brother is Reaped. Before Scott McCall, before Derek Hale, it is his brother Camden who enters the Games. He is seventeen, strong, and a fighter. Their father has always been so proud of him, but now he’s scared. He keeps saying he’s capable, he will show them. Camden loses anyway._

_When Isaac is eight, he remembers his father’s room having a stale sweaty smell of booze. The man pretends it’s not a problem yet, but the truth is, he can’t go a day without a glass of whiskey. Isaac wants his hand in his curls again, but the creases around his father’s eyes are all sadness now. He doesn’t know how to bring back the smiles._

_When Isaac is ten, he joins the sports team to be like his brother. He feels sore and achy and alive, and he wears his bruises proudly, with broad smiles. He’s good, too, wins prizes and gets commendations._ “Lahey gene,” _someone says. It is never good enough for his father._

_When Isaac is fourteen, he remembers lying about a bruise for the first time. It’s a fresh one, and he says he got it in a fight outside of school but he didn’t. He was playing, was careless, and he broke a few items of mother’s dinner set. She has left them to be in a better place long before Camden. His father spills a few drunken tears over it, over his dusty memories of her, equally broken, and then he hits him for the first time, and Isaac’s world collapses. Something fundamental changes when the hand that used to ruffle his curls rises to deliver a blow across his cheek instead. He remembers staring at each other in appalled silence, and the weepy apology in his father’s voice as he blames the alcohol and promises to give it up like he always does when he’s disgusted with himself. This time he actually does. But he doesn’t stop beating his son._

_When Isaac is fifteen, he doesn’t want to remember. His nails are broken, scratched to the point of blood, and the ice has stopped melting on his forearms. He’s suffocating, spinning left and right in the tight space frantically, clawing and hammering and groping at the walls. He’s disoriented, half mad with panic, blood rushing through his body at an enormous speed. The freezer shakes around him, taunting him with a brief hope that he might be strong enough to break it, make it fall apart around him like a house of cards. He doesn’t know yet that there is a steel chain around it. He pleads, half-moaning half-screeching, and his voice is scratchy and breathy coming out of his weakened chords. He screams himself raw. Tears are dripping down his chin, make him choke and hiccup in between of wails. No one can hear him._

_When Isaac is seventeen, his father is gone. The pain of it hits him harder than any bruise. The Sheriff has many leads, his abused son being one of them. None pan out; he is cleared of any suspicions. He knows from their eyes that they don’t believe it, they think he is as cruel as his father and has done something to the old man. Those who do believe tell Isaac he is better off because he was an unfit parent. And maybe he was, but Isaac would rather carry shameful bruises and not be the last Lahey than be free of his torment and on his own. He doesn’t know how to be like this, both his parents and his brother gone. He wants to sleep, for the memories and the pain to pass. He begins to want for it to_ stop _…_

_He is eighteen. He believes, at last he has come to the Capitol to die._

***

 

His eyes shut tightly, he can feel the other mentors restructure around him instantly. Derek snaps his head in his direction, his look appraising, reevaluating. Peter Hale is silently amused, and when is he not? McCall is quiet, subdued, and he is looking anywhere but Isaac.

Clearing his throat, Isaac says, “That was never proven.” His lips feel numbed, he is surprised he gets the words out at all, and it has never been hard before.

Hard was simply telling people he _didn’t_ do it. No one has ever believed it yet.

But it’s not about believing anyone on their word in this room, which Derek Hale hammers down nicely with his usual bluntness, “Did you?”

“I didn’t,” Isaac speaks softly, studying the pattern of the tablecloth.

“Did you?!” Derek snaps louder, angrier.

“I didn’t!” he raises his voice too and finally meets Derek’s eyes.

In them he recognizes that this was, too, a test. He isn’t sure if he gave the right answer. If Derek simply needed the truth, however dire. If he is glad his tribute is not an unconvicted murderer. Or if he was momentarily hoping for a fighter, one who has killed before.

From the corner of his staring contest with Derek Hale, he catches Finstock’s assistant moving to Scott McCall’s side and whispering something urgently, gesticulating wildly. McCall nods and moves to Derek’s side, relaying the message, the other boy hovering fretfully. His anxiety is catching, and Isaac gets a nasty certainty he’s the focus of this discussion, and nothing good is being said.

But whatever it is they are deliberating, it makes Derek’s stare turn from fiery into dismissive, and the tension in the room suddenly deflates. Isaac has an urge to throw a worried glance at Erica except he doesn’t want to look at her at all.

Peter Hale joins in with their debate, and Isaac feels unsettled and exposed being the object of their scrutiny. He wishes they would hold their reviews behind closed doors instead of like this.

“Finstock will escort you to the training facility,” Derek announces abruptly.

This time they do look at each other, caught off guard. It is almost comical how each of his declarations make them check with each other if they heard him correctly, if they understood him right—despite the fact that Derek Hale seems to always say exactly what he means.

Isaac wants to ask why, how the subject is dropped so suddenly, but he fears to and doesn’t. Complacently, he stands up from the table and moves towards Finstock who’s throwing him painfully wide grins that make his jaw ache just by looking.

“How are we supposed to train?” Erica objects.

Derek’s face is briefly smug. “You aren’t. You are to observe the competition. There are weapons you may practice there, and you shouldn’t. Don’t show off—the ones you need to impress are the Gamemakers, and there will be time for that. Don’t make enemies beforehand, only make friends if there’s a chance of that, and there’s usually none. There will be a trainer there who will teach you survival skills. That is the only thing you should learn there.”

He leans onto the table heavily, hanging his head low, dismissing them.

“Come on now, let’s not be late,” Finstock urges them on, as Isaac wrings his neck to look at Derek. “The Capitol waits for no one.” He’s checking with his clock paranoidly.

McCall and the young assistant are talking something over with Derek Hale, and Isaac thinks something about him emanates supreme disappointment. Then they turn around the corner, and the main hall disappears from view.

They are walking in dead uncompanionable silence. Finstock is saying something about the Games, but he isn’t really listening and suspects neither does Erica.

Her elbow brushes his lightly and she whispers, “I’m sorry.” He doesn’t respond. “For what it’s worth, I think it gives you a better chance of winning. Not just better than me, but better than most.”

He blinks, startled, and clenches his jaw angrily. He has thought she was being mean, but she actually believes what she’s saying, oblivious to his reaction. “I didn’t do it, Erica,” he grits. “ _That’s_ the truth.”

“Whatever you say,” she shrugs, stepping away, unconvinced.

He is left boiling in silent helpless fury. It has been almost two years and he still doesn’t know how to make people believe it when he says he’s innocent. Maybe it’s the fact that it was the local authorities who dealt with the situations, not the Peacemakers, but he remembers the District Five’s Sheriff with gratitude, his tired kind face—not kind like McCall’s but _knowing_ , worldly. Murder is rare, and Isaac had motive and a bad timeline working against him. But the man has cleared him, he has.

For some people _(most people)_ it just isn’t enough.

And suddenly it hits him.

He stops in his tracks, his eyes widening in shocked confusion, so that Erica halts as well and then urges him along with “Well, are you coming?”

He remembers why the boy, Finstock’s assistant, has seemed so familiar. He is District Five as well. He’s the Sheriff’s son.

And Isaac doesn’t know how it is that he’s here, cannot understand, but he knows it with unwavering certitude. He is that boy that was always hovering in the precinct, snooping around, playing investigator.

He wonders what it was that he said to the mentors about him. Was it about the case? Does he remember his father working it?

This lack of definitive knowledge crushes him with a finality that makes him want to cower in the corridor and weep. It is all too much, the constant pressure of fighting the inevitable, living up to someone’s expectations, toeing the line and getting used to these insane surroundings. He never had a lot of fight in him, and these three days, the third of which is only beginning, have sucked him dry of any will to oppose this.

“Isaac!” Erica calls again, unsuspecting and impatient.

He feels lethargic again, just like the first few hours after being Reaped. He cannot remember breathing and the sight of sun. But complacently, he moves ahead.

 

***

 

The training arena is exactly how Derek Hale warns them—a cruel playground for overgrown children. It reminds Isaac of being the new kid and wanting to join in a game, but not daring to for fear of being humiliated. A child’s worst nightmare, being laughed at.

Except in this place, no one will laugh. They will watch you fall, then club you to death while you’re down.

There are stations with trainers ready to teach the tributes how to fight, meant for those who have never beheld a weapon. But instead, these spots are instantly cluttered with Careers bragging their skills in a very _alpha male_ fashion.  
_Engage in activities your mentors have instructed you to,_ the overseer reminds them, so Isaac and Erica adhere, staying away from the enticing dangerous gleam of weapon racks.

Erica _is_ decent at gymnastics, so she tries her hand at the obstacle course. She’s better than many. Worse than the Careers.

They aren’t supposed to give anyone an unfair advantage by training children beforehand, but in truth nobody cares that the wealthy and the entitled do it. Isaac wishes he was born at least one District higher, where he would be given an unfair advantage too.

Isaac keeps to the stations that are mostly empty, underloved by the ferociously competitive atmosphere. There’s a shaky feeling of urgency inside him, that he is missing out on these vital first lessons of fighting and defending yourself with a blade, but he remembers Derek’s unblinking eyes when he instructs them not to fight and so he _obeys_ , he isn’t sure why.

Over the course of the afternoon Isaac tries his hands at snaring which seems relatively easy, but he is acutely aware that in the real wild he’ll hardly know how to position those. He’s not too good at hiding either: he feels too tall, all limbs and clumsiness, but it does not discourage him because he is fast—a fact he doesn’t show off but simply knows from the years on the school’s sports team. Camouflage helps too, so Isaac spends several hours trying to learn to hide in plain sight, to conceal himself by merging with the landscape. This he actually understands—he just wishes he had be more time…

Finally he settles with the trainer that tells him and the others of herbs and fruit and of basic survival skills: what is hazardous and what is remedial; what is poison and what is sustenance; what you should cook and what can be eaten raw; how to light a fire in rain and cold and wind. He feels mildly satisfied with this progress, but then he looks up and sees a Career challenging another tribute, a strong and tall one, but not from Districts One, Two or Four, to a duel. It is overseen by a trainer as the rules demand but the Career manages a cruel damaging strike anyway, before the fight is broken. And Isaac remembers, sweat coating him in a hot prickly feeling, that surviving the arena won’t matter if he cannot survive the men.

When the lunch is served, the Tributes are forced together again, adrenaline and testosterone bursting out of everybody. The low-numbered Districts flock close to each other, not a drop of color in their faces. They are lost and scared, and as he sits down with them, Isaac discovers he shares their feeling.

But as he and Erica huddle at the edge of one of the tables, they notice Finstock entering the gymnasium, wearing his trademark devilish expression. Spotting them, he breaks into the widest of grins and beckons them to come over with one clawed finger. Perplexed, they drop their forks and knives and get up from the table, approaching him worriedly.

“Time to go,” he announces ominously as they come closer.

Erica narrows her eyes dubiously and looks over her shoulder back to the arena. Some of the tributes are done eating and have gone back to the training station. “Aren’t we supposed to continue training?”

“Not when you’re from District Five, you aren’t.” Finstock grins crookedly, clearly reveling in his own wit, and turns to leave, never checking if his tributes follow.

Isaac is overwhelmed by a desire to turn back, to retreat into the arena and consume as much knowledge as he can. He dislikes the spokesperson for their District, doesn’t respect him in the slightest and possibly doesn’t even trust him, just like he mistrusts everything that has been bred by the Capitol.

But there is a firm belief in him that everything that concerns them also happens only with Derek Hale’s say so. It is an unconfirmed impression that has settled within him: that the man has power to command even Finstock, and if he is here by Derek Hale’s orders, then Isaac cannot _not_ follow.

He moves to go. Erica’s fingers claw into his elbow as she hisses, “Are you mad? We can’t leave!” There is a clearly defined fear in her face, her voice that Isaac can recognize with ease—fear of the Capitol.

He ponders it for one second before shrugging her off with a liberating thought. “We’re the tributes,” he points out. “What are they gonna do?”

As he catches up with Finstock, the man doesn’t turn to look at him, but acknowledges his presence by remarking, “They always follow. I never have to explain myself.” There is a wry smirk on his lips.

Before Isaac can venture his assumption that the reason for it all is Derek Hale, they hear a sound of running footsteps, and Erica catches up with them, panting slightly. She says nothing, and Finstock doesn’t make another comment on her account.

In her presence, Isaac holds his tongue. He wants to know if he’s not the only one to be caught by their mentor’s sway, if the others Finstock has mention, too, followed Derek Hale’s unspoken yet ever-present, carrying command. He dares not voice his thoughts, feeling foolish for his irrational deference. It does not last long, overshadowed by the relief he feels at seeing Derek Hale waiting for them at the end of the complex labyrinth of hallways Finstock leads them through.

“Your delivery, Mister Hale,” Finstock announces with a theatrical bow.

“Thank you. Punctual as ever,” Derek nods at him. It could be said with a jeer but instead sounds almost polite, surprising Isaac that a man such as he would show any dime of respect towards a man like Finstock. “Leave us?” Derek Hale proceeds, and again it sounds like a question instead of a command.

“Good luck with this lot.” For the first time Isaac observes Finstock’s smile appearing genuine. The man catches him staring and gives him a slap on the back. “Make us proud.” Winking at Erica, he slips out the door. She looks at Isaac, equally confused by this show of camaraderie, and he looks to Derek.

Two bright eyes are staring back at him without blinking. “So. What have you observed?” he drawls.

Isaac remembers his earlier instruction—to watch the competition—and tries to summon to his mind the little details he has observed about the people there.

Erica beats him to it by stating flatly, “That the Games are rigged from the start?”

“Yes,” Derek nods, as if it has been the answer he was expecting. “District One is the wealthiest. No one argues with the money. District Two are the Peacekeepers, who are trained to fight from the cradle. District Four are sea-smart, strong and fierce and rebellious. They come here battle-ready, bent on winning.” The man’s eyes gleam dangerously as he speaks of the Careers, before his expression closes off and he continues without enthusiasm. “Then there are other Districts, half of which see a weapon for the first time _today_. And most mentors have each their own tricks to try and boost their tributes’ skills in the short time alotted to us. _Ours_ is that we will train you to fight.”

He looks behind himself, and for the first time since entering Isaac realizes that Scott McCall is present as well, leaning against the wall across the room. He thinks he should feel guilty for not noticing him before, but he’s not. In his mind it speaks tons of McCall’s presence that he is this unnoticeable. And at this moment, Isaac really doesn’t care if the man is here or if he’s not.

He just feels elated, lighter than air, flooded with confounding relief. He has prayed for an advantage and he is given one. Being trained by Derek Hale makes him feel hopeful that he may survive an onslaught, outlive and outsmart the rest.

Then Derek says, “Erica. Today you’re with me.”

An abyss of blind terror unveils in Isaac’s gut. He doesn’t realize that in his overenthusiastic reverence he believed in the existence of a connection between him and Derek Hale. Instead it is Erica who is singled out, and he wonders if he has failed at one of Derek’s tests after all. If despite his assurances he does play favorites. If he thinks Erica has a better chance of winning _(which, admittedly, she must have)_.

“I thought we were supposed to be training together,” Isaac mutters darkly, bristling some.

“So you will,” Derek responds, which really clears up nothing. “And right now you’re with Scott.”

Isaac looks at the younger man, a thousand objections on his tongue. McCall is apparently aware of all the things there are to object to, and doesn’t make it awkward by giving him any winning consoling smiles he’s so good at bestowing. He throws Isaac a quick upward turn of lips instead and turns away again, apparently busy with carving something with a thin switchblade.

Isaac doesn’t plan to voice any of his concerns, but catching the looks Erica keeps throwing him—the same pitying expression in them—he cannot bear them in silence.

“And how was this decided, exactly?” he asks defiantly.

“By a _coin toss_ ,” Derek replies in a dangerous tone that says _do not cross me_. He makes one step forward, which is somehow intimidating enough. “I will say this once: you _need_ us. We _will_ teach you. And trust me, _we_ know better.”

He turns almost with a swoosh, and McCall is on the receiving end of his glare without causing his ire. “All yours,” the man drops, then looks at his chosen protégé. “Erica.” She approaches him obediently, and his hand comes to rest on her shoulder heavily. He leads her out of the room. The door slams behind them like a thud of a guillotine dropping down.

Isaac fancies he can actually hear the sand trickling away in the hourglass that has been measured for him. He has no time to waste, and he’s saddled with the youngest mentor in the history of forever.

Scott McCall has been fifteen when he has won the Games four years ago. If not the youngest, it’s still very young. But it’s not his youth, and not even his kind eyes that has won the audience over and made the Capitol remember him. McCall is the only winner of the Games that hasn’t killed a single tribute in the arena.

Isaac admires that, feels a surge of desperate envy each time he thinks about it. He wants to be the same way: come away a victor, and unscathed. But he enters the Games less of an idealist than his mentor is even now. And for all his charm, Isaac doesn’t believe Scott McCall has anything to teach him.

The young man seems to have read his thoughts as if they were written across his face in tiny words. “You think I’m too young, don’t you?” He smiles simply, knowing the answer perfectly well, and shrugs easily. “It’s okay. They always do.”

“I’m sorry,” Isaac says, but he’s really not. “Derek Hale just seems to know what he’s doing.”

“He does,” McCall doesn’t argue, smiling again, this time with warm respect.

It bothers Isaac, this detached optimism of his, like the guy doesn’t even realize just how much his tribute detests being here. “McCall…” he calls for his attention.

The boy’s face crinkles around his eyes in subdued resentment, and he shakes his head jerkily. “Please. Just Scott. If I’m too young, might as well be on the first name basis.”

Isaac doesn’t care much for the idea of this forced familiarity. Then again, there is no sound reason that it should bother him, so he doesn’t let it and nods without argument.

“About what Erica said yesterday?” he continues with his original thought brusquely. He wouldn’t admit it, but it has been nagging on his mind.

“Yes?” Scott seems to be taken off guard by this topic.

“Is _that_ why? Why he didn’t choose me?” he asks. He doesn’t care if his blatant preference offends McCall’s feelings. Maybe if it does, they will switch them. “Was he hoping for the opposite answer? Does he think I lied? Or does he think I’m weak?” That question sounds like a challenge, although Isaac isn’t sure if he’s protesting McCall, Derek, or them both.

Scott sighs, pondering the question, and sets himself at the edge of the table. “There are two things you need to know about Derek Hale,” he tells Isaac patiently. “First, he wants you to win. We don’t favor either of you. We want both of you to leave unharmed, but we – just – can’t – have – that,” he says, cutting each word. “And we have mourned every single one we couldn’t save, make no mistake.” The twist if his lips is earnest and a little bit disgusted—with the Capitol and its stupid savage rules. “The other thing is, there’s nothing he respects quite like honesty. The Capitol is all about lies and trickery and pretense, and he hates it, so he always says the truth and expects to receive it back. So if anything, it got you points for not bragging about something you haven’t done.” He falls silent and apparently watches for Isaac to meet his candid eyes, to make sure he is equally believed on this point, before continuing. “Now, would he be happier if you _did_ kill your father? Possibly. If it somehow gave you an advantage,” he admits. “Not because he’s cruel, but because you will have to learn to kill either way.”

“You haven’t,” Isaac points out.

Scott’s smile sours like bad wine, turning sad and almost apologetic. “That’s not really an advantage.”

Isaac ponders on it and finds he is unable to resent McCall’s compassion when talking to him up close like that. Unable to _resist_. He may be useless as a mentor, but, just like Derek Hale, at least he is _honest_ in his kindness and his failures.

Then he remembers something else. “How _do_ you know I’m innocent?”

Scott squints, gathering crinkles around his eyes again. “It’s a little hard to explain,” he stalls.

Isaac knows already. “He’s the Sheriff’s son, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Scott seems surprised again. “Stiles,” he clarifies.

He nods dismissively, the name never having entered his memory. “Then how is here?” he demands.

“He’s my friend.”

That doesn’t sound like a satisfactory explanation, and Isaac presses. “ _So?_ I don’t recall anything about friends getting a special invite.”

“They don’t,” McCall rubs the bridge of his nose, hesitating, like he’s treading on the grounds of a delicate matter. “He smuggled himself in here without either me or Derek knowing.”

Isaac falls silent, his mind going back to the silver-bullet train, surrounded by a convoy of Peacekeepers. He wonders who in their right mind would dare approach it, where there’s even to hide. He wonders why anyone would risk it and then understands with a heart-rending feeling McCall’s earlier words, _He’s my friend._

 _That’s_ friendship. That is fidelity.

“Derek must have been so happy,” he says flatly, going for sarcasm, when really he’s just empty. Envious. Alone.

“Ecstatic,” McCall raises his eyebrows in amusement. “We lied that first year, and after I won we convinced Finstock to take him on as an assistant. He’s pretty organized when he puts his mind to it.”

Isaac thinks about the thin boy with flailing arms that are everywhere and comments that just won’t cease. “Wouldn’t know it by looking at him,” he remarks dryly.

“No, you wouldn’t,” McCall’s tone is light yet earnest, not a hint of teasing about it. “But just like most District-born around the Capitol, he’s not as simple as his first impression.”

Isaac looks up, meeting his direct stare, and wonders if McCall believes he fits that description as well. If so, his conduct appears pretty straightforward to Isaac: a charming kid with a winning smile who has gone through hell and back again. You wouldn’t think _‘winner’_ looking at him. Then again, Isaac doubts if he truly is that, or if his victory should just be chalked up to luck.

“If that’s the last of you question, we’ve got a lot to accomplish until tonight,” Scott pulls him back from his musings.

“What’s tonight?” Isaac echoes in alarm.

“I will be determining what weapons you’re good with, if any. Deciding on your proficiency and the best way to proceed with your training,” Scott says instead, ignoring his question. “Derek’s doing the same with Erica, in case your concerns are not belayed yet. Today will be the only time you’re separated—saves us time. Tonight though,” he looks at Isaac intently, an underlying flame in his eyes, “your real training begins.”

 

***

 

Sweat is pouring all over him as he stands, bent in half, staring up at the obstacle course Derek Hale has laid out for them with murderous intent. It’s been several hours, and he feels like he has pulled every muscle and broken every bone in his body by now.

They are playing out a scenario of assaulting the Cornucopia if it is manned by a Career. He has some progress to show for it: he makes it to the end every time, although in the end Derek always has him beaten.

They are training in a room that is almost identical to the official Capitol arena, except it is considerably smaller, just enough to fit them all generously. He’s glad to have all the space to themselves.

There are leather safeguards and wooden props of weaponry, dummies to practice on and a ring to fight in. Everything in the Tribute Building is dependent on high-end technology—he has witnessed it in his room and during breakfast. This room is no exception, but the level of intricate engineering here takes his breath away, leaves him gaping in astonishment. Finstock’s assistant, Stiles, is the one setting the parameters, sitting at the white table with a myriad of glowing consoles. He takes his cue from Derek Hale, but also does a fair share of improvising. The console summons the holographic images of different landscapes, different obstacles, changes the landscape of the room under their feet. Isaac has never seen, has never _imagined_ anything like it. Leaves him wondering how the hell Derek Hale has managed to cheat the training program like that.

“Concentrate!” Derek’s voice pierces through his thoughts, and he crouches instinctively, as he and Scott are circling each other. They have been sparring hand-to-hand and are both left panting. Now Scott is armed with a blade two thirds of the length of his forearm.

“An enemy goes after you with a knife,” he says. “What do you do?”

“Run away,” Isaac quips back darkly. He’s tired. He knows he cannot afford to be tired, but he has never strained his body like this before.

“That’s a choice too,” Scott replies, unperturbed, and closes the distance between them in one stride, swinging the knife. Isaac leans back hard, his hand raising automatically after having been taught to deflect unarmed strikes all day, his fingers wrapping around Scott’s wrist and stopping the motion. It takes effort, and he is surprised at the young mentor’s power that goes into his attack before Scott relaxes and steps back.

“That’s good,” he nods. “You’ve got the instinct. But that is not how you stop me. When you catch my wrist,” he grabs Isaac’s fingers and puts them back into their hold on his arm, “you grab me from this side,” he moves them to the back of his hand, higher. “Or you slide your hand here, if you grab me like you did just now. Then, you’re not stopping me anymore. You press,” he squeezes Isaac’s fingers into his own arm with his free hand, and continues the motion through the air at a very slow speed, “use my own momentum to plunge the knife into my thigh.” The blade slides alongside his leg, and Isaac watches it, feeling slightly sick as he imagines it actually sinking in.

Scott steps away again, perhaps to give him some room—he’s empathic like that. “There,” he spreads his arms expositorily.

“Continue,” Derek Hale insists, his voice adamant. McCall throws him a warning glance but doesn’t oppose and turns to Isaac again.

“Your opponent is in pain now,” he continues his instructions calmly. “You have the opportunity to yank the knife, both out of his leg and out of his hand.”

Facts run dull, undescriptive from his mouth, yet it makes Isaac picture them all the more vividly.

“When you do, don’t fall back. Hit while the shock is still fresh, while you’re still close.” He cuts the distance between them again, bringing himself so close Isaac sees his lashes sticking together from sweat. “Don’t leave an opening for him to retaliate, infuriated by pain. Strike again. While the abdomen and the ribs are vulnerable.” He makes slow slashing movements across Isaac’s guts and alongside his ribs.

All the while he is staring inside his eyes, seemingly without blinking, his pupils so thin all Isaac can see is the brown of his eyes. He has thought it is a warm brown, coffee brown, hot chocolate brown, wet earth in the summer that smells of life and freedom. Now he sees how it also can be a death brown, the color of an old photograph, of a faded memory, when there is nothing more to you. Hawk brown, just before it strikes. Merciless brown, gleaming harder than steel.

“Do not stab,” he goes on saying. “Don’t give him a chance to clutch the weapon and leave it in his hands. The smartest thing you can do is cut alongside the rib,” he thrusts his right arm forward, slithering the blade alongside Isaac’s right side, so deep their shoulders are almost touching, and Isaac hisses in a breath, startled. “This way,” Scott remains self-possesed, “you can disable the arm.”

He moves as if dancing, circling behind Isaac, his fingers digging into the inside of Isaac’s elbow, twisting his arm to the back and lifting it almost to the point of pain. The blade is pressing into his skin, making Isaac shiver slightly. He knows this is training, not real danger, but his body reacts all the same.

“You make another cut, alongside the bicep,” Scott says against his ear. Nothing else. Isaac twists his neck, searching his face form the corner of his eyesight. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to respond, and if he is, he’s got nothing to say.

The world pauses.

“ _Continue,_ ” Derek repeats, his voice ever so forceful, ripping the tension in half like thin cloth. Scott jerks his chin up and glares at him darkly, letting go off Isaac in the same moment.

“No,” he protests. “ _You_ continue.”

“Scott,” Derek’s voice is low, commanding. “ _Finish._ ”

Scott glares at him disobediently and then drops the knife, tip pointed downward. It falls with a thud, the blade sinking into the floor, the metal resonance rippling loudly in the startled silence. Scott turns to leave.

In a blink of an eye Derek’s out of his chair, lunging across the floor with an animalistic slickness that makes Isaac stagger back, heart leaping into his throat. Like an arrow, Derek is swift, storming past him and yanking the knife out, heading directly for Scott. The young man has barely enough time to turn before Derek Hale barrels into him, and the two grapple viciously.

The result is painfully predictable. Derek Hale is taller, stronger, physically superior, and while Scott tries to fight him, it’s futile. Derek overpowers him like an avalanche, and they end up demonstrating the exact maneuver Scott has been practicing on Isaac (which must have been Derek’s intent from the start). Derek’s hand snakes between Scott’s arm and torso, he forces him to turn, the knife makes a stinging slice from Scott’s elbow to shoulder, making him yelp, and then Derek is crushing his spine against himself.

In pulsating silence Isaac and the others watches Scott struggle in Derek Hale’s chokehold, his face strained, crimson with blood rush, and his fingers dig into Derek’s forearm, slapping against it like it is done in training, demanding a break. Derek gives him none, instead shifting his sharp gaze between his two tributes. Isaac doesn’t meet his eyes for the first time. Instead, he watches, mesmerized and sickened, how a thin, almost imperceptible cut that Derek has made on Scott’s arm starts blooming red. With Derek Hale, there is no mercy.

Catching the direction of Isaac’s eyes, Derek says in a hard tone, “You have to finish.” Isaac looks up, and the mentor’s eyes are staring into his soul. “This is the Hunger Games, and everyone is against you. You don’t leave a wounded foe _alive_. And if it makes you sleep better at night, think that you’re putting him out of his misery.” He presses the blade to Scott’s Adam’s apple, nicking the skin again, and Isaac watches, paralyzed, nostrils flaring, the trickle of blood crawling down the young man’s throat.

“ _Finish,_ ” Derek enunciates and finally releases Scott.

The young man starts forward, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly, and he wipes his throat, smudging red across, then looking at his fingers. He’s infuriated, yet appears utterly unsurprised that Derek has behaved this way. And although his hands curl into fists, he makes no move to retaliate. Instead he raises his right elbow, scrutinizing the cut along his arm, then turns and pushes past Derek, hitting him with his shoulder and muttering,

“You have the floor.”

Watching his tense shoulders, as he goes to sit beside his friend Stiles, Isaac begins to realize how exactly Scott McCall has won: he might not have been a distinguished fighter, but with lessons like these it is unsurprising he knew how to survive. And for the first time Isaac stops regretting not being Derek Hale’s first choice and thinks that he might prefer to learn from Scott.

Scott giving the reins over to Derek, this is also how Isaac ends up running obstacle courses against him in the tech-controlled environment, most traps in which are orchestrated by Stiles, who puts treacherous decoys all over the place. He’s good at them, admittedly—possibly as good as a Gamemaker—but today Isaac doesn’t have it in him to be complimenting. By now he just wants a fucking break. For something to go his way.

Stiles’s explanation on how to detect, avoid and disarm his traps do not help the matter. In fact, they just add more fuel to the furnace.

He barely formulates the thought, skidding through the trees, when a fireball conjures before his very face, heading right for him. He tries to evade it, but he isn’t fast enough, and a semi-palpable mass of pixels blows up in his face, knocking him on his ass.

Growling, he rises on his elbows. “What the hell was that? It wasn’t there a second ago!” he points at the dissolving textures.

“We’re training your reflexes,” the young man shrugs and throws a hesitant glance at the mentors, as if asking for them to back him up.

“That was a _fireball_. That doesn’t happen in real life!” Isaac gets up on his feet, still quivering with anger, like a taut bow string.

“It’s not _‘real life’_ ,” Stiles snorts, grimacing. “It’s the Hunger Games, or did you miss the memo? The Gamemakers have a totally different set of rules.” He crosses his arms on his chest, a little smug.

“They aren’t gonna kill me with a fireball!” Isaac explodes.

“You know that, don’t you?” Stiles continues in the same superior tone. “And who said anything about _killing_ you? They’ll just make you an easy prey. They’re good with that. So here’s a tip. Think faster next time,” he advices bitingly.

“You think this is so freaking easy?!” Isaac finally snaps, lunging towards the young man so that he starts back and loses his balance, slumping from his chair.

“Hey!” Scott McCall’s voice rings angrily.

“ _Enough!_ ”

Suddenly, Isaac is lying flat on his stomach, his cheek pressed to the floor. Derek Hale’s fingers unclench from his neck, and he can almost feel the man’s nails scratching him. He sits up on the floor and rubs the back of his neck. Neither of the mentors is looking amused, not even Derek. For all his anger, he is always in control, and Isaac finds out the painful way that he doesn’t take kindly to people lashing out.

“You will not do this again on my watch,” Derek says. “Stiles isn’t doing anything we don’t want you to learn.”

“And what good does running through imaginary landscapes do us?” Isaac challenges. “We’re still cannon fodder!”

Derek’s eyebrow arches slowly. “You think you’re ready for some real action?” he asks, his voice grating, but expression unreadable. “Fine,” he nods. “Scott. If you will,” he turns to his fellow mentor and makes a broad inviting gesture towards the ring.

McCall hops down from where he was perching, but he’s looking reserved. “I don’t know, Derek. Doesn’t seem like a fair fight,” he shakes his head.

Isaac wonders what he means by that briefly, a superior feeling of his own swelling inside him. Must be the fact that it has been some time since Scott really fought. Especially considering that he hasn’t killed anyone during his Games. He must not be a strong opponent, which is why Derek has suggested it—

His trail of thought is interrupted when Derek nods in response to Scott’s concern after a momentary consideration. “Fine. Erica? Please, help your fellow tribute.”

“What?”

Isaac snaps his head at this direction, trying to take all of their expressions at once. He cannot understand what Derek Hale is thinking, and Peter, who has been silent most of their workout, offering small contributions, is as amused as ever, but Stiles is smiling smugly, and Scott visibly relaxes.

Isaac is starting to suspect he has read into it all wrong.

Erica has been resting up after her own try at the obstacle course, where she has fared no better. She jumps from her chair eagerly and joins him, frivolously swaying her hips and winking at Scott. She is getting a hang of the “looking pretty” business, to the point where it starts making him uncomfortable.

She doesn’t linger to wait for instruction either—just strolls past Isaac languidly and then lunges at Scott with cobra-like swiftness, probably banking on his inner code of chivalry that is bound to include the “I-do-not-hit-women” rule. If it does, there is apparently a clause: in the Hunger Games, all bets are off.

Erica pounces, trying to knock him over with her momentum, drag him down to the floor as they both fall. (She’s not serious about it, too, it is still _‘a game’_ for her, and not the capital-G kind.)

Somehow, Scott manages to shake her off like drops of rain, and she slips down and onto the floor while he watches her with a calm expression. Isaac, though, certainly has a better chance: he’s taller, possibly more agile than the rusty Capitol-fed mentor, and he can take a punch if McCall throws one at him.

Scott’s strength catches him by surprise.

He was so unassuming, so charming and polite and passive, that it was impossible to imagine knots of muscles under his baggy clothes. And yet Scott grabs him and actually lifts him in the air with terrifying ease, before tossing him aside like a bag of useless bones that do not construct a human being.

He hits the floor hard and coughs, scrambling himself up. From the corner of his eyes he sees Erica making another attempt, this time more forceful, aggressive. She manages to land a few strikes before Scott knees her in the gut. Isaac hears her grunt of pain all the way to where he is.

“That’s a foul!” he exclaims indignantly, flailing his hand, still kneeling down on the floor.

“These are the Games, Lahey,” Derek snaps, echoing the sentiment expressed by Stiles. “There is _no_ foul. Stop gawking and get back into it,” walking up to him, he grabs Isaac by his shirt and pulls up to his feet, pushing him back into the ring.

Angry and determined, his blood burning from all the adrenaline, Isaac goes after Scott.

“Work together, people!” Derek snaps again. The comment has to be intended for Erica who has managed to get back up and can think of nothing better than slam her fists into Scott’s back, making him lose balance and crash headlong into Isaac. He’s ready for it, crushing Scott with both arms and slamming him into a wall, kicking all the air out of his lungs, before trying to repeat Scott’s move and toss him across the floor.

It doesn’t happen. Like a cat, Scott’s already on all fours when he hits the floor. He slides backwards a few feet, his calculating eyes already cast on Isaac, and when he makes a step forward, Scott lunges at him, hunched low, and grabs him across the torso with a yell, slamming him down into the floor. Isaac gasps, trying to inhale again, but Scott doesn’t let him, fingers digging into his shoulders, yanking him up and then smashing him down, again and again, several times in a row, until Erica comes to Isaac’s aid, grabbing Scott from behind and entangling him like a spider with all her limbs.

Scott releases Isaac and rises to his feet, swaying under Erica’s weight. Backing away into the nearest wall, he slams his back into it with all his might, and Erica with it. Isaac swears he hears a crunch of bones. He has barely got up and tries to take another swing at Scott, but the young man evades him, bending like eel around Isaac’s fists, or exercising the same blocks he has been teaching earlier, employing them masterfully.

And then Scott simply sidesteps him, and his fist collides with Isaac’s gut. Grunting and feeling much like Erica has, he bends down, cradling his own abdomen, and Scott’s elbow digs into the knot of nerves between his shoulder in a stabbing motion. Isaac’s knees buckle, and as he’s coughing on the floor, still clutching himself nervously, Scott clocks him in the jaw.

Isaac sprawls across the floor like a carpet out of an animal’s hide. Turning his head weakly, he sees Erica’s lying on the floor, staring at him with wide eyes, and she makes no attempt to get up. She yields.

And so does Isaac. He is _beaten_.

“That was not half bad,” Derek comments in a matter-of-fact voice that would infuriate Isaac because it sounds like a cruel joke, but he’s too worn out to feel strongly about anything.

“How is it not bad?” he still voices his displeasure loudly, trying to unbend from where he was lying on the floor. Scott steps forward, and Isaac’s shoulders stiffen, an alarmed thought rushing through his head that he hasn’t asked permission, wasn’t supposed to get up, will be stricken again, _did I tell you to get up, you stupid boy?! it’s your own damn fault—_

Scott ignores the cringe—if he notices it at all—and grabs Isaac’ hand, helping him up.

“You’re learning,” he explains with a sympathetic smile. “That’s good. You have no idea how good it is. Sorry about the beating,” the familiar crinkles gather around his eyes apologetically. “It’s a necessary part of the process.” Isaac nods numbly, as Scott keeps staring at him with wide eyes that seem to be conveying something to him, but he cannot tell what it is. There is a hidden side to Scott after all, he thinks, and he is yet to uncover it. “The doctors will tend to you shortly.”

“And tomorrow,” Derek’s voice interrupts this odd moment of _something_ between them, “we will go again.”

 

***

 

In the infirmary Isaac learns that the medics in the Capitol can cure about anything, which is why the damaging kind of teaching Derek delivers onto them raises no objection from the softer side of Scott McCall. He comes in battered and bruised, and leaves wasted but whole. And despite feeling as tired as death itself, he is filled with hope that the mentors might actually get them prepared for the main event.

Passing by Erica’s door, he hesitates and then taps lightly on the smooth panel and waits for several long minutes. When she finally opens he’s almost about to leave. She’s standing in gray long-sleeved pajamas, same cut that his are, drying her wet hair with a towel, and without the make-up and snug leather she looks like District Five. Like home.

“Yes?” she asks impatiently, her eyes cautious and unenthusiastic as she meets his.

“I—” he drawls, then swallows, suddenly unsure what he came to say. At the end of the month, one of them will be dead for sure. Both, most likely. He can examine the thought in a detached fashion, but focusing on it steals all the air from his lungs. Thinking that he will meet his end on a Capitol arena. That people around him will go on, and he won’t know, he will be _nothing_.

He thought he was ready for this—to stop existing—but no one truly is; it’s not in human nature. And Isaac’s chest is crushed with fear at the very thought, as if his ribs are cinched by tight metal chains, and he shakes his head, trying to will the nightmare away.

 _I just wanted to check in,_ he means to say. _See how you’re doing._

“Are you okay?” he asks instead stupidly, desperately, his voice hoarse and strained. “You wanna talk?”

Erica leans against the door, favoring the shoulder Scott has dislocated earlier and that the medics must have fixed, and lets a fraction of her exhaustion show. “What are you doing, Isaac?” she says tiredly. “We’re on our own, can you not see it? No matter what the mentors say, we will never win _together_. It just doesn’t happen.”

She is right. He knows she is right. But he cannot objectify her like that. He has seen her at school. He knows she has grown up walking the same streets he has, and there is kinship in that, a stronger one than with the mentors who are sullied by their contact with the Capitol. He is the proverbial loner in District Five, but that life is a fallout of calamitous circumstances, not a choice. He is not stronger alone. He’s breakable. And he feels bound to this girl by the cruel lottery that has sent them here. Even if she thinks he’s a murderer, even if they are soon-to-be-enemies under a fragile truce.

“I’m not okay.” He means to say another thing again, but the words spill out of him with candor, and he forces himself to continue as her eyes widen. “Yeah, I thought I was, but… far from it, actually,” he mutters in clipped words. “And I don’t think you’re okay either.”

She looks up into his face, bewildered, and finally accedes, her shoulder sliding from the door as she opens it wider. He weasels inside, brushing shoulders, and the smell of her shampoo and soap assault his nose with exotic scents.

Her room is identical to his, except for the window-screen. Erica sets it to show the vivacious colors of the Capitol, all blood-red tonight. She’s a little enamored by it all, he can tell, and he thinks she might even be happy as a victor.

In his own room, Isaac has set the window-screen to show the forest. There aren’t much green zones in District Five, all stripped apart by power plants. Mostly the groves are on the outskirts, close to the Fence, where the winners houses sit, inaccessible.

He is visited by an unexpected thought: _He would love to live by the woods…_

Erica waves at the bed in resignation, and he slumps on the edge of it, clasping his hands. She’s waiting for him to say something else, anything, and he’s got nothing but the raw truth.

Looking up at her, he says, “If this is the rest of my life, I want to at least not betray my own District. I won’t make them watch us bludgeon each other to death, I _won’t_.” Erica’s face changes, and she turns away, thinking of her family undoubtedly. Isaac closes his eyes and lets the silence wash over him, filled with nothing but the soft sound of Erica walking around the room, hanging the towel, opening and shutting the drawers.

Then he feels the bed sag beside him, as she sits down, then scoots closer. Her skin is cool from the draft, and his own, when they touch, appears to be burning.

He wants to talk to her about so many things. He wants to tell her about his father, about how he doesn’t deserve to win, how he’s afraid not to. He wants to ask about her life, her family and friends. He wants to speak of Derek Hale and Scott McCall, about the Games and what she fears most. He wants to ask what she misses from the District, what are her favorite places, then reminisce together.

He cannot bring himself to open his mouth.

But strangely enough, it feels like they’re discussing it all the same.

Erica’s hand crawls onto his lap, fingers curling around his wrist. “I don’t want to fail our District either,” she admits.

It is a painful companionship that bursts him open from the inside as he looks at her. So easy to imagine being friends with her. But it would never last.

Later he is returning to his room in confused spirits when an arrow of light falls across his path from a door cracked open. Halting, Isaac mingles himself with the shadows and looks around the corner. The light is flowing from the main room along with hushed voices; the mentors are there, huddled closely together and whispering, undoubtedly about Erica and himself.

In the dim light of the room they look tired and old—much older than they are. Peter Hale shouldn’t be sporting grey in his hair at thirty-six, and Derek is still twitchy, bristling at any loud noise that startles him. Scott makes an almost straightforward impression by comparison, but only because that is what he strives to appear like. In the close presence of the others, however, Isaac finally sees how he _is_ one of them: which is to say, he is behind the impenetrable wall of being a winner of the Hunger Games.

He finally takes notice that when Scott speaks, there are gaps between his phrases, so many spaces that are filled by unspoken pains that only these two in the room are able to comprehend. He thought he drew the short straw with having him as his mentor, but now he realizes that Scott McCall might be the strongest of the three.

Derek suddenly jerks his head up, guessing Isaac’s presence with some preternatural sense. He gets up and walks to the door, leaving Isaac mere seconds to retreat and let the darkness swallow him outside the reach of Derek Hale’s eyes. He isn’t sure why he’s hiding, exactly, except he feels like he has intruded on something he wasn’t meant to see.

Derek gives the darkness a long sweeping look and doesn’t seem to notice him. He steps back inside and shuts the door with a finality that makes Isaac realize quite clearly: the only way for him to understand these people is to win the Games. But death might be the advisable alternative.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead!!! Neither is this fic! I am not going to try and excuse this unplanned hiatus because despite any real life reasons I might have had, I still feel bad. Apologies!! :(

The Hunger Games are uniquely pretentious at their core: for all their supposed effort of unification and being a social gathering, they are inherently about one man for himself. In the center of a celebratory crowd there is a sullen group of people who know what is coming and aren’t in the mood to rejoice. And inside that group, you are still alone, all on your own.

Scott doesn’t endure aloneness well. He cannot imagine getting through the Games if Stiles weren’t with him. Given the chance, Scott would have repaid him in kind and beyond, but, as it happens, he’s never had that opportunity. So at times it seems like he owes Stiles a debt he will never be able to repay, and in his most depressing moments of self-pity he thinks he ultimately did nothing to deserve such friendship.

He wishes he could pay it forward to the tributes, too, but every year they come and he cannot help them. Most grow close to each other, which is a painful luxury one can afford only at the expense of a guilt-free conscience. Two knew each other from around the District, he recalls, which made it easier on them at first and really hard later on. Two didn’t want to know each other, their immediate, albeit rational rivalry leaving a bitter taste in the mentors’ mouths.

But most are like Isaac and Erica: alone and scared but not showing it, drifting towards each other because there’s no one else to drift to. Scott wishes he could be there for them, like Stiles was for him, but he cannot do that. He is not their peer any longer, he is a victor, which is close enough to the Capitol that he is almost an enemy. The familiarity he offers seems a forced intrusion instead.

And even where the tributes may perceive his attempts at befriending them as merely unwanted, to him it is a hurtful impossibility. It is hard enough to mentor these kids for two weeks and remember every second that they are from your home District, that if you fail to bring them home, their parents’ accusing eyes will follow you forever. It is downright excruciating to let yourself care and then watch the Hunger Games tear them apart, shredding that part of your soul that you gave over to them into useless tatters.

Watching Erica and Isaac train, Scott finds he pities the boy the most—even though he would resent his sentiment if he knew. But never before has he met a tribute more alone. In his first year as a mentor they had a girl who was thirteen and looked even younger, and she was thin and scared, and his heart bled for her, and the first night she cried for her mother. But at least she had someone to cry out for. Last year there was a boy, a loner, who claimed he had no friends, but Scott doubted he was not being overly dramatic, and even so, he had his family.

Isaac Lahey truly has no one.

 

***

 

_The factories start working at five in the morning. Other government facilities open their doors at six—including the hospital where his mother works. School starts at eight, and Scott and Stiles catch a monorail train to there at 7.10 together. They return on a 15.40 train, unless they get saddled with a detention, in which case waiting for the next train to arrive is almost as long as going on foot. The walk takes them a little more than an hour. Grocery shops close at five—not because there’s a law, but because money spent on food is sparse, the shopkeepers hardly make enough to support their families, so most have second jobs at night in order to keep the same food they sell steady on their tables._

_The factories close their doors at ten, bit it’s a ruse. The Capitol never actually allows them to cease working._

_Thus, everything in District Five is run according to a tight schedule—one you cannot afford to deviate from, because time around here is never generous nor flexible. Scott is so used to the routine it is usually enough for him to have his head touch the pillow at eleven to be completely dead to the world._

_It’s long past twelve on the Capitol Train, and it is nothing like the monorail in District Five, it’s silent, and you cannot feel the motion. Nothing disturbs him… So why can’t he fall sleep?_

_His thoughts keep running through the events of the day, tossing over every little detail, and he is boiling in his own fear, feeling it trickle out of his pours, leaving him sweaty and jumpy and nearly delirious._

_He doesn’t remember falling asleep but he must have—because he awakes, quite abruptly, to a soft rapping, imagining Stiles’s voice outside. Momentarily he cannot wade through his muddled thoughts and his heart is leaping in his chest as he tries to find his bearings. For one treacherous second he believes, with overwhelming relief, that he’s at home, and it’s the Day of the Reapings, and everything about him being the tribute has been just a nightmare. That Stiles is here to wake him up early, and Scott hears him distinctly, rapping at his window._

_Then he takes in the posh surroundings of the Capitol train, both ascetic and rich at the same time—nothing fancy too look at, just a place for a tribute to sleep and get dressed, but every single thing here, every material stinks of money._

_That’s when Scott becomes aware of the problem acutely: the train is silent. The rapping he hears is not the wheels, it is indeed the door. So if he’s on the train, how the hell is the voice, saying urgently, “Scott, I can hear you shuffling your lazy feet inside, will you open the freaking door?!” appears to belong to Stiles after all?_

_Scott almost jumps with the realization, promptly jerking the door open, so that Stiles, who has been pressing himself to it, almost falls in._

_“Finally!” he says, shaking the invisible dust off his clothes in jerky theatrical movements. “What, have you gone deaf, sleeping on silk sheets?” He’s looking about, trying to hide his nervousness behind the bustle of bravado, and Scott stares at him, mouth hanging open, and can’t quite find the words._

_“W—? Stiles! How are you—I me—Whu—Wwwhhnnn—uh—gah—God!” he manages to produce unintelligibly, clutching his head with both palms. “I can’t believe you’re here!” he declares, which produces a smug smile on his friend’s face, except this isn’t one of their freaking antics back at the District. “Are you cracked?”_

_“What, I can blend in! I’ll make a… a very convincing, uh, fig tree, maybe? I’m sure they don’t pay much attention to shrubbery.”_

_It’s not really funny, but Scott can hear how tight Stiles’s voice is behind the glibness, and he doesn’t waste time on reprimands._

_“Stiles, they are going to have your head, we have to send you back!” He looks around the room, as if it holds some sort of emergency teleportation device._

_“How the hell are we gonna do that?!” Stiles is starting to sound equally panicked._

_“How did you get here in the first place?!” Scott echoes, then bites his tongue slightly, remembering to mind his tone and not alert half the train to their commotion._

_“I don’t know!” Stiles flails in distress. “I didn’t think they’d let me!”_

_“What? Who?!” Scott feels like he’s about to give himself an aneurism._

_“The Peacekeepers, the ones guarding the train! I spun some bullshit about some courier task and having some documents from the mayor’s office for one of the mentors, blah blah, I thought they’d kick me to the curb thirty ways to Sunday!!”_

_“But?” Scot presses. Clearly, that was not what happened._

_“But maybe they thought there wouldn’t be an **idiot** who’d try to **lie** his way onto the train?” Stiles explodes anxiously. “They let me in, and I couldn’t well bloody flee with my tail between my legs after **that** without going in—or it would have looked suspicious! And then I almost ran into one of the mentors, and I hid, and then before I knew it the freaking train was moving!!” Stiles clutches at his head, the reality of it finally catching up with him. “Scott, I can’t be going to the Capitol! What the hell am I supposed to do?”_

_Scott is trying to calm down and think rationally. “We have tell someone—one of the mentors!”_

_“No!” Stiles grabs his hand like he was about to ring the bell. “Trust me, I know how the justice system works, and justice is the last thing it provides. They’ll just give me over to the Peacekeepers, and no one will ever here from me again, because instead of pretending to be the shrubbery, I’ll be feeding the worms under one!”_

_“Ugh,” Scott grimaces at the mental picture Stiles provides. “Well then… We’ll, uh… We’ll have to hide you.” He looks up at Stiles’s helpless expression, and all of a sudden he’s furious—not with him, not exactly, but he explodes all the same. “God, **Stiles**! I am gonna murder your myself! I’ve been Reaped, I’m the chosen tribute! I am going to die!!” he covers his mouth immediately after saying it and closes his eyes in mortification—it’s the first time the words have manifested on his tongue, but Heaven knows he’s been thinking them all day. It’s too scary a possibility to consider, and he tries to shut it out again by more yelling. “I don’t have enough nerves to worry about you too! Fuck!” He bites his tongue promptly, his mother’s stern face as she reminds him not to swear rising before his inward sight, and that doesn’t make him feel any better._

_Stiles’s face contorts in distress for him. “I know,” he says quietly, his voice uncharacteristically subdued. “Scott, I **know** , but I just thought…” He staggers. “Well, I didn’t **want** you to go through this alone.” He shrugs, feeling stupid, and Scott stares at him with wide eyes. “I thought I’d try. Who knew it would turn out so spectacularly terrible?...”_

_Terrible? Perhaps. But not altogether so…_

_They are sitting on the bed in silence, Stiles fumbling with the sheets, not meeting his gaze, and after his own atrocious outburst Scott is afraid to either. But…_

_“Stiles?” he calls softly._

_“Hm?” Stiles turns his face to him, guarded yet hopeful._

_Scott looks at his hand clutching the red cover and trampling it with fingernails. “Would it be completely horrible of me to say… that I’m really glad you’re on this train?” he breathes out and offers his friend a pained and grateful smile, filled with so much unspoken gratitude and fear and loyalty he feels he might just die._

_Scott is never alone throughout the Games. He has his best friend with him…_

***

 

_The air howls around them chillingly, tousling their hair. It smells of night-blooming vines and damp earth. The night sky projects its light from a source other than the moon. It’s an Arena, after all. Everything is at the behest of the Gamemakers’ fingers._

_Scott recalls the sloping edge of the bottomless cliff, and tearing out chunks of grass with clots of earth in desperate attempts to hang on to something, the three of them an angry knot of spittle, desperation and survival…_

_The faint sound of water below the cliff is not comforting, because the fall will be deadly either way. The thought of it makes Scott’s stomach plummet, but—_

—there is a floor underneath his feet. He and Derek are perfectly safe in the Training Room.

It’s just too easy to be caught up in the simulation, especially when it is a little too close to the reality of one’s past.

Isaac and Erica are climbing what is made to look like a cliff—have been for the past half an hour, in fact. Derek is running them mercilessly, so that their bodies will be at least fractionally prepared for the trials the Games will put them through. The room is darkened, because straining their muscles is not enough for him. They are operating under the assumption that everything is a disadvantage.

A clock is running on the wall, counting down to when whoever’s chasing them—other tributes, mutts, or whatever fictional obstacle Derek comes up with for the day—catches up with them. Blam. Time’s up; trap’s shut. You’re dead. _Finished_.

Derek’s fond of throwing that word around.

“The clock’s ticking,” he reminds them in a harsh voice. “Hurry up! Unless you want the cannon fire to be announcing your departure from the Games.”

“You know what would be a tad more encouraging?” Erica responds bitingly. “If you’d stop shifting this damn wall trying to emulate a several-story hike instead of the height of this room. I thought the “top” of your imaginary cliff was fifteen minutes ago, and—” she’s trying to sound challenging despite the fact that she has to catch her breath between every two words, “it’s not that I’m complaining—cause I’m _**not**!_ —but when are we gonna reach the top exactly?”

Derek is completely unmoved by her outrage, and his tone when he answers is dripping with derision. “Because Gamemakers never mess with the laws of physics. And I’m sure the Careers would love to listen to your excuses. There’s no begging in the Games, no turning it off when you’re tired, no giving up. You have only one choice: make it through!”

A sympathetic sigh escapes Scott’s lips. All these years, and he still cannot understand this tactic of aggression of Derek’s. All he ever wants to do is reassure these children. Maybe that is exactly why they work so well together—because they’re full of contradictions and different incentives. Maybe that is also why they don’t work well enough…

“Don’t let him get into your head,” Scott tells them all the same.

“I don’t need to,” Derek snaps, waving his hand around the darkened room, made look so authentic it sends chills up Scott’s arms. “One slip, and it’s a thousand feet fall until they smash against the incisor-sharp rocks down below. You know that well enough.”

Scott gulps the jagged memories down, unsure if Derek is speaking in general terms or prodding at a badly healed wound. You can never know with him—he likes pressing you where it hurts.

Still holding Scott’s eyes trapped Derek cuts the words out: _“Keep. Climbing.”_

“We’re _climbing_ ,” Isaac growls through gritted teeth. The boy allows himself to talk back to Derek when he’s upset, but never raises his tone above a mutter; he’s afraid to show anger—a reaction Derek continuously tries to elicit from him in spite of that.

“Doesn’t look like you are,” he retorts, eyes darting to the tributes.

“Don’t listen to him,” Scott intervenes, stepping closer towards them. “Everything will be working against you, _everything_ will be taunting you, and you _cannot_ let anything get to you—including Derek Hale. Just continue on as you have before.”

Derek hums but doesn’t object, crossing his arms on his chest and reviewing the tributes with scrutiny.

“Don’t try pulling yourself up with your arms,” he voices, catching Erica tugging on one of the vines that run the height of the cliff especially hard. “Use your legs. Push.”

Erica growls and hooks her fingers one ledge higher. “When—is—the bloody—top?” Her teeth are clenched tighter than a vault, and her voice comes through with a severe strain.

“Stop complaining and concentrate,” Derek growls back with ire of equal measure. “Reyes, I can see your legs shaking!”

Scott narrows his eyes, his attention all glued to Erica’s trembling figure. There is that tremor again, the one he has noticed the very first day. The one that is not a product of fear or exhaustion.

“Derek,” he draws the man’s attention to it in a low voice. “I think something is wrong.”

For a few seconds they watch her, with fingers of one arm wrapped tightly around a vine, the other arm feeling for a stony ledge blindly. The shake in all her limbs is more arresting by the second.

“That’s enough!” Derek commands, as soon as Scott’s suspicion settles down within them as an ugly and apparent truth.

The others pause, looking at him: Derek _**never** _ stops a challenge before it is completed. Peter and Stiles look puzzled, and Isaac is trying to look over his shoulder in uncertainty, thinking it is another trick, another taunt. Only Erica continues holding on, her frame shaking wilder.

“I said _**enough**_!” Derek repeats, his voice harsh. “Kill it, Stiles!”

His friend jerks from his spot, promptly complying. His fingers fly over the control panel, and with a hum the lights turn back on, momentarily blinding. The floor is back under their feet and the cliff Isaac and Erica have been struggling against becomes nothing but a climbing wall with several ropes hanging the length of it—just a bleached white skeleton of the intricate illusion it can be.

Isaac is holding one of the ropes tight, feet firmly set in the grips, and he lets go of one arm to twist around, half hanging, and look back at Derek and Scott. His face is confused and wary.

Erica is hiding her face from the blinding lights, her shoulders shaking wildly, and Derek almost hisses as he glares at Stiles murderously for blasting them with full power. But it’s not his fault—it’s theirs, for not knowing earlier. Scott is ready to kick himself: he saw that she was sick—but not until this moment has he realized with what.

“Erica?” Isaac notices the girl’s distress as well, and reaches out with his free hand to touch her. Unwise.

She flails her hand to slap him away and cries out a little—it almost sounds like a _No_ , except it’s raw and her voice catches and hiccups and in the end it doesn’t sound like anything. She jerks her arm—or maybe she slips—and then she’s letting go.

“Erica!” Isaac shouts and reaches out, trying to grab her—she has been climbing faster and was positioned above him, he has time to react—but his fingers grab hers only momentarily before she slips out of his hold. He almost loses his balance and sways before hugging the wall tightly and urgently. “Erica!” he exclaims again.

Scott is there to catch her.

She collides with his arms and he barely stands his ground, swaying under the impact. Derek’s stronger arms help his balance, steadying him by the shoulders from behind.

“Stiles, call in the medical team,” Scott asks in a grave tone, kneeling down and settling Erica onto the floor gently.

“Way ahead of you,” Stiles echoes.

Erica is unnaturally pale and shivering in his arms, but she is not beside herself yet, and her shaky fingers are clutching at his shirt. “I ca-can d-do this,” she stutters out. “I c- _ **can**_! It’s _nothing_!” The last word is a barely heard whisper.

“I know,” Scott agrees easily. “Of course you can.” It has become glaringly obvious to him in the past days that nothing gets Erica more upset than thinking the others don’t believe she can do something. And he does believe—he believes it about every single tribute, feels obliged to—but this time he needs her to believe it too, his belief empowering her.

Her eyes flutter, and her shivering somewhat subsides, although she doesn’t still completely, and he continues to cradle her in his lap. There is a thud when Isaac finally reaches the bottom and jumps down. He kneels opposite of Scott, his fingers covering one of Erica’s hands.

“Is she gonna be all right?” he asks quietly. Scott looks up, but Isaac isn’t searching his face, he’s looking at her.

“Hardly. I have never seen this in a teenage girl,” Peter mutters.

“Nor have I,” Scott echoes in dismay. It has nagged at him as something vaguely familiar, the way she moved sometimes, accommodating her easily-hidden shortcomings. He has assumed she reminded him of the District Six tribute from his own time in the Games, prone to shakes for an entirely different reason. It escaped him what hers were—because they are a plight of old men and some unlucky boys, or so he has observed.

“You said—You said that she was sick,” Isaac remembers. “What’s wrong with her?” he demands to know.

Peter’s voice is rancid and flat when he says, “District Five.”

Isaac looks confounded. It doesn’t dawn upon him immediately.

Every District has its plague that takes its toll on the population. District Four has the flashfloods; District Seven, the wildfires and even wilder mutts that make the woods utterly inhospitable; District Six, its addiction problem.

District Five’s cityscape is tall and wide cooling towers, pointing upward and spewing clouds of pungent smoke. District Five provides the entire Panem with energy, the smoke poisoning air day and night, shrouding it in black smog, so that the Capitol may bedazzle and celebrate from dusk to dawn.

District Five is powerplants—there are several solar ones, mostly coal ones, but at least a third of them is nuclear. And you can talk about safety all you want—meltdowns happen, and while they are rare and have all been contained, you can still see people around the District with shaky limbs, ulcerated skin and loss of hair. Young people are rarely allowed to these jobs—the loss of life is considered too wasteful. Some power plants, however, are less restrictive, and heavy metal poisoning is quite a common sight in the streets. Mercury, lead, arsenic, manganese—Scott can count several things that could have caused Erica’s muscle degradation if she were a victim of a workplace accident.

It is the simple fact that no teenage girl should have even been working at a place like that which turns Scott’s stomach.

“We should really invest in her hiding and escaping skills,” Peter remarks dryly.

“Can’t your cure-all doctors help her?” Isaac asks indignantly.

“Her organism is poisoned,” Derek says darkly, with all the despicable detest he holds for Panem and the rotten foundation it’s based on. (Scott didn’t use to think much about it until Derek and his bold and unlawful beliefs.) “There’s no cure for that.”

“I know,” Erica whispers from Scott’s arms. Her eyes are closed, but her shakes are calming down. “It does not happen too often. It will _not_ be a hindrance!” she cannot raise her voice above a whisper, but she speaks with a conviction of a fighter.

Scott exchanges hard glances with Derek. Moments like these are when he whole-heartedly shares his friend’s hatred for the regime. It’s bad enough that the Games leave the winning tributes broken. They should not come into them broken already.

He says nothing on the subject, forcing out of himself a sour smile, barely sincere, that she won’t see anyway, and he says, as earnestly as he can muster, “Of course it won’t. You’ve been doing _fine_ , and you’re gonna do _great_.”

It’s a lie. Almost certainly is. But he delivers it with a reassurance that bolsters her, makes Erica nod minutely and relax. That’s his job—to not let them to lose faith.

Others say nothing, pretending momentarily to believe him.

 

***

 

_He remembers them all—the tributes of his own Games. In the most generous corners of his soul he will mourn every one of them as they will fall down, paving the way for his victory. Back then he is watching them, fearful and deliberating, wondering who of them is going to be his downfall, or if it is he who will be theirs. The same glances of insular suspicion stare back at him, sending goose bumps over his body._

_His mother raised him right. He looks at the girls—most of them are his age or even older—and he wonders if he would have the stomach to raise a hand against any one of them. He wonders if them being vicious and coming at him with a knife would change anything? It is unlikely he will know his true worth until he’s there._

_There is a kid who must be near the lower cap in age, thirteen or twelve. No one stood up for him in the Reaprings, and Scott finds himself looking away. The boy looks so helpless, stirring a desire in him to protect the meager. He can’t do anything with that desire, and he doesn’t want to imagine him lying dead in the grass somewhere, a pool of blood underneath him either._

_The boy from Six is scrawny, with a sickly pallor to his skin. His hands are shaking profusely, and he’s all damp with fear. Scott cannot look at him without his stomach turning. But there are those who have no problem with observing his spooked demeanor, seizing him up like he’s a meal to be served. That **is** probably how they see him—the Careers._

_One look in their direction makes Scott’s heart flip. Derek keeps saying he will make a fighter out of him yet, but there is no way that in two weeks he can make him skilled enough to beat these guys who have been training for it all their lives._

_Already they are packing together, like wolves. Their leader, the boy from One, is not the tallest of the bunch, but there is something dangerously unscrupulous about his eyes, the way he’s sneering down at Scott when he catches him staring, his lips curling like he’s about to bare his fangs and tear Scott’s throat out right here. (Scott wouldn’t be surprised about that, either—one of the winners from District 2 has done exactly that.)_

_Scott’s plan is to keep his head down and not to antagonize anyone. Things don’t exactly work out that way—because Stiles had to get involved._

_Finishing his meal, Scott dumps his tray into the bin and goes to locate his restless friend. He finds him in a nail-bighting leg-jerking state, squirming on the edge of a bench and watching a girl who is standing a few feet away, observing the giant screen that is broadcasting scenes from deep within the ocean. For a moment it steals Scott’s breath: he has once seen an aquarium in the mayor’s office, but this is a whole another level._

_Watching Stiles fidget, Scott quickens his pace to stop his friend from doing something regrettable, but before he reaches him, Stiles suddenly jerks forward, nearly tripping over himself, straightens his clothes and hair in a single ridiculously flowing motion, before circling the girl and coming to stand by her right shoulder. Scott presses his fist to his mouth, halting not three feet away, and prepares to witness a disaster in the making._

_“Amazing tech, isn’t it?” Stiles says, clearing his throat and trying to put on air._

_“I don’t really care,” the girl all but snaps with a daunting finality, and Stiles wilts. Scott exhales slightly—no talk means no figuring out that Stiles does not belong here—and what was he expecting from a Capitol girl, anyway?_

_“Okaaaay,” Stiles drawls awkwardly, shuffling his feet away. “Never mind then.”_

_The girl snaps her head towards him like a bird and raises her index finger, indicating for him to wait, before clawing it and pointing sharply at her ear. She is wearing a small headset, nearly invisible: they are a rare luxury in District Five, something neither of them sees often enough to have noticed about her, but nothing is a luxury in the Capitol._

_The girl’s gaze is unfocused and she turns away to watch the ocean life again. “Please!” she drawls in a most arrogant tone. “The interpolation is exactly right, don’t you take me for a fool!”_

_As Scott dares approach his friend, Stiles jabs him in the side with an elbow excitedly, having visibly perked up. Scott grabs his arm and hauls him away._

_“Ow, ow, **ow**!” Stiles complains, resisting and taking his limb back. “Spending a little **too** much time around Derek Hale, are you?”_

_“Stiles, are you out of your mind? What do you think you’re doing?”_

_Scott can feel himself emanating palpable concern. Stiles is pretending to be oblivious to it. “Shh!” he hushes him instead, his eyes trained on the girl. “Just act cool, man! She’s jussssswwwhhhoawhohohwow…” the words turn into an unintelligible jumble of sounds in his mouth._

_“She’s just what, Stiles? Just from the Capitol? Just has the power to turn you in?” Scott grabs his shoulders, shaking him a little._

_“She’s amazing, Scott!” Stiles exclaims, shrugging his hands off, like he’s blind, deaf and thick in the head. “Just look at her.”_

_Scott does. There is a taste of local glamour all over her, almost like you can lick it off the air surrounding her. In her ruddy gold hair there are woven strands of quartz and golden feathers. Her arms are covered with glitter that disappears beneath her sleeves. Her cheekbones and brows are powdered with invisible sparks as well, which suddenly flare up when she tosses her hair._

_Scott can see how she is beautiful, and she **knows** she is, too, flaunting it shamelessly even as she is engrossed in a conversation—it is her second nature. Scott sees her beauty, but he cannot see anything else that would make Stiles act so lovestruck._

_“Stiles, I’m looking,” he says under his breath. “And I see a girl from the freaking **Capitol**!” he hisses. “You, however, **do not** exist here. If anyone finds you out, you’re a dead man! Let’s just get out of here.”_

_“No—please—wait—just—” Siles is struggling against Scott’s renewed attempts of dragging him away. “Stop it!” he hisses, as the girl raises her hand to flick the headset off, evidently finished with the conversation. “Stop it, I mean it!” he repeats determinedly._

_As she turns, they drop their yanking hands and grin at her goofily. She raises an eyebrow at them, perplexed._

_“Sorry about the—” she points at the headset. “The Games are almost upon us, and I am forced to walk around, talking to myself like a **crazy person**.” She grimaces and looks at them expectantly. “So? What do you want? Speak up!” she orders impatiently._

_Scott’s mouth hangs open, caught off guard, and he drawls an unintelligent “uuh”, staring at his friend, slightly at a loss. Stiles is only too eager to jump in._

_“So, you’re involved with the Games, huh?”_

_The girl considers him shrewdly. “Yes,” she says slowly. “And I’m not supposed to converse with the tributes.”_

_“No!” Scott protests, afraid she’d report them for one of the numerous offenses one can apparently commit in the Capitol without knowing about it. “We’re not trying to…” he trails off, because they weren’t trying to **anything**._

_She glances him up and down. “Huh. You’re District Five,” she observes. “I’ve been watching you, you’re getting better. Are you hiding some trick up your sleeve?” She means to tease, but there is something very serpentine and dangerous about how she does it._

_“Just my mentor doing his job.” She hums, and he can’t tell if she believes him or not._

_“I’m not a tribute,” Stiles cut in, “so you can talk to me freely.”_

_“Can I?” She seems amused._

_“You betcha!” he’s trying to appear suave and he doesn’t yet notice that the girl’s eyes are not simply pretty—that they are as hard as the gemstones in her hair. That they are sharp and spot everything. He doesn’t yet know (though he will learn soon enough) that she possesses a lively mind to rival his own, but a far colder heart._

_“And you are who, exactly?” she demands flatly._

_“Stiles. Scott’s friend,” he provides, a little insulted to be looked over._

_“And how does_ Scott _already has a friend here?”_

_“W—I’m from District Five,” Stiles’s tongue lets slip before Scott has a chance to stop him._

_The girl narrows her eyes suspiciously, more vicious in her interrogation than Derek was. “And how are you authorized to be here?”_

_Stiles looks stymied. “Well—ah—yeah, our men—” Scott panics and jabs him in the ribs pointedly before Stiles brings in Derek and Joan into this as well._

_“I mean, I **am**! I just **am** —of course I am, pfft. By… **lots** of people!”_

_Scott closes his eyes and wonders how in heavens he’s ever managed to trick the Peacekeepers into letting him on the train, when in front of one girl he is such a terrible and transparent liar._

_With a sigh of martyrdom and growing panic, Scott turns away, only to spot Finstock waving at him wildly._

_“I have to go, Finstock is calling for me,” he murmurs._

_“Right!” Stiles turns, pinpointing the man with his eyes. “Our spokesperson is calling us,” he announces, “and I am—uh—hisssss… **assistant**! That’s right!”_

_Scott’s eyes boggle, and Stiles waves back at Finstock, like it’s no big deal. “See?”_

_Finstock pauses his hand and stares at Stiles in suspicious confusion, before Scott waves at him nonchalantly, signaling that he sees him. Finstock points his thumb upward insistently and leaves, off to locate Chryssa presumably. He turns to look over his shoulder once or twice, perplexed, and Scott prays he does not recognize Stiles as the clumsy “servant boy”, or they are all in deep trouble._

_The girl raises an eyebrow skeptically, and this time Scott is definitely sure: she does not believe them._

_As Scott is turning from watching Finstock leave, he suddenly finds the situation changed radically, as he is nose to nose with the Career from District One._

_“What do we have here?” he drawls, and his voice is deceptively soft and sort of oddly beautiful, in a way everything about the pampered Districts usually is. “They bothering you, Lydia?”_

_“Why? You here to be my dashing rescue?” her voice is filled with frosty derision that makes the boy turn to her._

_“Maybe I am,” he throws back, his tone somehow both offended and challenging, although Scott doesn’t understand why that would be._

_“I thought tributes aren’t allowed to consort with the… Game… makers,” he butts in, fumbling for the correct word, for he has no idea what the girl’s job is._

_“Aw, he speaks after all…” The Career’s face turns so sweet and patronizing it instills a sense of complete icy dread in Scott. “The scrawny puppy-eyes from District… Five,” he makes a show of pinpointing the emblem with the number on Scott’s uniform, even though he must have been aware of the number already. “You think you can challenge me?”_

_There’s still a scornful smile on his lips. He doesn’t mean right now—he means the Games. And no, Scott doesn’t think that. He really, really doesn’t._

_“Jackson,” the girl sighs impatiently. “They weren’t bothering me, and I’d rather you do that instead of bothering them.” Her face expresses nothing but boredom, though, even as she continues to say, “I’m amenable to do some ‘consorting’ right about now.”_

_The Career snorts through his nostrils and says, in a lazy display of his own superiority, “‘Cause to answer your question, pup—the tributes aren’t allowed to nag the Gamemakers for tips and whatnot. ‘Consorting’, as you’ve so aptly put it, is quite another matter, especially when done regularly.”_

_He snatches the girl, Lydia, closer to himself, his hand grabbing possessively at her soft curve, and she makes a small noise of malcontent—pouting, yet still doing it quite prettily. The boy doesn’t seem to be bothered that she might mind, and kisses the curve of her pale glittered neck. Behind them, Stiles—who is blessedly **not** involving himself with the Career—pantomimes vomiting._

_Scott stares with shock at Lydia’s expression which stays completely dispassionate, and promptly looks away, finding that he doesn’t get them at all. Their words, their tone of voice, their facial expressions—nothing fits each other. They speak both flirt and poison in arrogant voices with indifferent faces, and Scott wonders if that’s what poses for love in the Capitol._

_“Enough,” she says after a few seconds, and with one_ expertly manipulative _hand she both pushes him away, then slides it to capture his palm and interlace their fingers, tugging him after herself as she turns to leave._

_But Jackson is not quite finished with his opponent yet. He pauses her determined marching and comes close to Scott, looming over him intimidatingly._

_“A piece of advice, Five?” the Career leans towards him, and Scott almost expects a finger being jabbed into his chest, but Jackson is not that stupidly theatrical. “Stay clear of me. You may not want to face it yet, but you’re a dead man.” He says it with an amused smile, like death is a trifle subject meant to be joked about. Typical Career arrogance, that._

_“In the arena,” Jackson proceeds to promise, “I’m gonna piss on your grave.”_

_Lydia purses her lips and looks to the ceiling, like she’s ashamed of him, or maybe simply exasperated. Her long crystal-incrusted nails claw into Jackson shoulder decisively, making him hiss._

_“Lydia, dammit, don’t do that!”_

_“My time table might be amenable,” she says, “but it’s not amenable enough to accommodate watching you make yourself feel good without my_ personal _involvement.” She raises an eyebrow sharply. “Let’s just go.”_

_He doesn’t argue after that, and, drawing together again, Scott and Stiles watch them leave, the glamorous and heartless pieces of the Capitol._

_“So…” Stiles asks lightly. “You think she’d go for me?”_

_His expression, much to Scott’s chagrin and lack of understanding, remains a degree of smitten. He chuckles nonetheless._

_“Sure, Stiles,” he echoes tiredly. “If only her boyfriend weren’t so…”_

_“Scary?” Stiles offers._

_“Yeah, that.” Putting it mildly. “Although, I was gonna say, ‘hell-bent on killing me’,” he sums up darkly._

_“You’ll kick his ass for us both, though, right?” Stiles looks at him deadpan._

_In spite of himself, Scott laughs, unexpected and unchecked._

_Getting his humor under control, he shakes his head. “I better go upstairs and see what Derek wants me there for,” he says._

_Stiles nods distractedly. “I’ll just be here, looking around,” he says, twirling his head curiously._

_“Please, don’t get yourself executed before dinner,” Scott says, but Stiles is not exactly listening, waving his words away like an annoying fly._

_With another long-suffering sigh Scott abandons him. His head is way in the clouds as he runs up the stairs, and as he’s making a turn, he bumps into someone else, a stack of papers erupting in his face—_

***

 

When Scott was in the Games, the arena was the woods. It offers the most diversity, high advantages and cruel traps alike, which is why many Gamemakers favor it. So does Derek.

Scott hates training in the woods. Sometimes he suspects Derek chooses the setting so frequently just to trigger the worst in him. His heedlessly sour mood tonight certainly invites such implications. It’s their last night of official training, too: tomorrow, the Gamemakers will be evaluating the tributes. May have something to do with Derek’s mood as well.

Tonight, he and Derek have been playing the parts of the Careers, making Isaac and Erica work their best in pair. Attack in pair. Think as a twosome. They strive desperately to give them all the advice possible—they do every year, and can never account for everything—later they will be helpless to watch them make mistakes.

Derek allows the session to stop when it is almost midnight. Erica and Isaac can barely stand on their feet, but she still manages to sound defiant—albeit out of breath—when she asks, “How did we do?”

They never do say if it’s Erica or Isaac who is better: Scott praises them equally, and Derek never offers anything but the recount of their mistakes. They have done well enough, though, given that the time to absorb their lessons is so unfairly limited.

Scott isn’t sure why they are allotted so little a time to train. In fact, back when Peter was a tribute, the training period lasted a month; now it’s two weeks. It seems like such an utter waste; one would think the Capitol would invest in the training more if they truly wanted their ‘spectacle’, if they wanted something other than mindless slaughter.

But he doesn’t question: in Panem, people who question the policies of the state are promptly and cunningly punished, often not publically when things concern the winners, but certainly where it hurts.

“What about you then?” Erica asks, half teasing.

“Excuse me?” Derek turns to stare at her, too surprised to even be outraged properly.

“You won’t compare us, I get it. But how about the two of you? Who’s the better fighter?”

Scott cannot say that the answer to her question is simple. At times Derek still hands him his ass on the platter. At times he manages to best his former teacher. Despite that, he chooses the easier answer and shrugs, “I’m pretty sure it’s Derek.”

“Really?” Erica arches an eyebrow. “I mean, clearly, you’re tall, broad-shouldered and everything, but Scott is younger and he is a more recent winner,” she points out.

“If you call that a win,” is Derek’s immediate—and unsurprising—response. Scott looks at Erica, wondering what she’s trying to prove by pitting them against each other.

“What is it that you’re hoping to get out of it?” he asks in a rough tone.

“Satisfied curiosity,” she shrugs, falling into slight unease. Scott accepts that there is no agenda. She’s a little spitfire, that one, a troublemaker who causes havoc before she really thinks about what it is she’s doing. “I’m sorry, I just thought… You’re riding us so hard, it would be a fun break to watch you two at it, and not just barking instructions.”

Derek seems to consider this and turns to face Scott questioningly. He is not one to teach by letting someone observe him, but the idea clearly holds some merit to him. If only to blow off some steam. Scott shrugs, communicating his acquiescence just as silently. From someone else’s point of view it might look somewhat impressive, but the truth is, with a man as taciturn as Derek you learn to read him and to respond in kind soon enough.

Derek nods abruptly and walks over to the weapon rack, picking out two wooden staves. Where the props they use instead of blades are just that, a pretense at the real deal, the staves are quite the formidable weapon, and Scott tenses somewhat: whatever lesson Derek has in mind by humoring Erica, he does not intend to go easy on him.

Derek tosses him the staff, and Scott catches it effortlessly. Suspicion building up in him, he follows Derek to the center of the ring.

Their sparring is as much a fight as a it is dance. They are circling each other, eyes locked and unblinking. Their steps are slow and carefully measured, but their minds are working with a frenzied speed, processing each other’s movements before they happen, trying to see one step ahead, assessing, gauging, searching for a breach. Scott feels blood pulsing in his head to the point of pain, a feeling both exhilarating and terrifying.

They keep determining each other for what seems like forever, but must be only several minutes. Still, others grow from being excitedly anxious to impatiently bored.

“Don’t let him press you, Scott,” Peter remarks, breaking the silence finally, as he watches Derek advance on him again. “Circle around, use your constitution.”

“He _knows_ ,” Derek growls, in a tone that manages to make it sound like _Shut up!_ instead.

He’s right, too: Scott does know. And with Peter’s voice rupturing the tension stretching out between them, he finally lunges, jutting his staff forward and up with both hands, then turning it horizontally so that the end that was closer to him reaches further forward still. He makes Derek retreat abruptly, almost nicking him in this bold gambit—there’s barely a breathing inch between his staff and Derek’s chest as Derek ducks away.

His arm on the farther end of the staff ends up being too stretched, and Derek holds his own weapon with one hand only, freeing the other and using it to grab Scott’s vulnerable forearm and bend it, successfully stopping his gained momentum and blocking him. Wielding his staff with but one arm he executes a well-placed strike against Scott’s knees that he isn’t fast enough to stop.

It almost makes him drop, and one point goes to Derek. Furiously, Scott jerks his arms up, helping himself with the staff, overpowering Derek’s block. The resulting arch of their arms allows him to make his escape, and as Scott slinks away and around, the tip of his staff finds Derek’s shoulder blade.

The man snarls, twisting abruptly, and they fall apart again, continuing their dance around each other.

“Watch your shoulders,” Derek growls. “Don’t mirror me, it’s bad form.”

“Are you fighting me, or teaching me?” Scott snaps back.

“I’m _always_ teaching!”

Scott lurches forward, their staves clashing in a flurry of movements, too quick for anyone’s eye to process. But every blow Scott attempts is parried before he can reach Derek. They retract, and collide again, panting, sweat glistening on their arms and faces, soaking through their shirts. He manages to execute a fast sting, like a strike of a coiled snake, and Derek falls back with a stabbed knee, huffing out an angry half-snort half-laughter.

Scott smirks smugly, and is still naïve enough to think that tonight he might gain an upper hand over him.

He rushes forward again with a strike that Derek gracefully dodges, and Scott narrowly avoids being hit in the face with his answering strike. He tries plummeting on, but Derek frees one arm again, hooking the staff with the entire length of the other and shoving it behind, propping it against the floor, while with his free hand he grabs Scott’s staff and uses all his might to shove him back and send him staggering.

As Scott tries to circle again for another stinging bite of his staff, Derek parries each of his shots. Then he pushes his staff way up, hooking Scott’s from beneath in the process—and it’s either let him yank it out or end up with dislocated wrists. Scott lets go; he still loses his footing and staggers forward. Derek tosses his staff aside and grabs both Scott’s forearms, dragging him forward even more and tossing him across the floor with all his colossal strength.

Scott falls down on his hands and knees and curls a little in white-knuckled pain, pressing his forehead to his forearms, hiding the grimace of hurt. Derek picks up both their staves and comes to stand over him.

“Get up,” he growls.

But Scott is defeated—unsurprisingly so—and he is quite ready to admit it. Letting his muscles relax slowly, he rolls onto his back and lets out a breathy chuckle.

“You win,” he says. “I give up.” And he raises his arms up in front of him in a gesture of forfeit.

It’s all he can do not to scream when the wooden staves collide with his hands. _Smack_ and _smack!_ He has known pain far greater, that is true—but that doesn’t mean things like these should stop hurting.

“No, you _don’t_ give up!” Derek snarls. “There’s no calling it quits in the Games, do you understand?” He grabs Scott by the collar, and he seems so furious like he’s forgotten Scott is a mentor already, that he shouldn’t waste his scare tactics on him.

Maybe he did forget—they all hit their fugue states sometimes where time suddenly becomes irrelevant, giving way to fears.

Which is why all Scott does is grit, “Yes,” through clenched teeth, trying to keep his voice as collected and uninjured as possible. “I’m sure we all understand it, Derek.” He stresses the word _‘we’_ , and it seems to return Derek back to reality, as he blinks and abruptly lets Scott go, leaving wide breadth between them.

Scott coughs—because Derek’s fingers on his collar were not exactly tugging but rather crushing his windpipe—and turns to stand on hands and knees. When he looks up to watch Derek’s expression, it is back to being almost inscrutable, and if Scott fancies he has seen contrition in it, it is long gone into the vault that is Derek Hale’s impenetrable face.

He looks at Isaac and Erica instead—they are quite dumbfounded, and Erica looks ashen and close to tears: she’s the one who’s caused it after all.

“Do you _understand_?” Derek demands of them, not about to let the lesson go to waste. “You have two choices in the arena. You either survive, or you die. Now what are you gonna do?” He descends on them.

“Survive…” Erica mumbles breathlessly, when it becomes apparent Derek is waiting for an answer.

“I’m not hearing you!”

“Survive.” Isaac’s voice is more steady and clear, but he does not meet Derek’s eyes. Somehow Scott guesses he disapproves.

The man nods and turns to leave, unhinged. The door slams dismally behind him.

Scott carefully picks himself up, and Stiles is there to offer him a towel and a bottle of water. “Someone’s a real sweetheart today,” he notices dryly.

“It’s all right,” Scott says in between heavy breathes and greedy gulps of water. His hands feel like they’re on fire, and he clutches at the cool bottle like it’s a salve. “I’m hardly a picnic when I have my episodes.”

“Too true,” Stiles agrees solemnly. “You’re a sad and pathetic wreck of droopiness when you have your moods. Derek is merely a terrifying monster.” He makes a mischievous grimace. “Oh wait. That’s actually _far_ freaking _worse_.”

Scott only chuckles, while Stiles continues to ramble on about psychotic ill-breds and their poor social skills that are lacking even after years spent at the center of Panem.

Isaac’s unexpected approach catches Scott off-guard.

“Are you all right?” he asks softly, and his upset seems genuine. He makes a helpless gesture towards Scott’s hands, like he wants to touch them but then thinks better of it.

“I’m fine,” Scott promises, reinforcing it with a confident nod and a wry smile. Isaac looks unconvinced. “Really,” Scott insists. “It’s nothing.”

“Didn’t look like nothing. Looked like a helluva something.”

“Pfft. That little stunt?” Stiles snorts. “Should’ve seen what happened last year—Derek actually broke Scott’s arm, the sweet concerned mentor that he is. Unstable freak,” he grouses to himself, as he is unplugging the tech. “Raised by wolves, he must have been.”

Scott snorts at Stiles's grumbling again, but Isaac doesn’t seem to find any of this amusing.

“Why is he behaving like this?” he asks, his eyebrows knotting accusatorily. “You’re a mentor, like him. Isn’t he supposed to treat you as an equal?”

“Bah, the man’s incapable of acting out concepts that are not in his thesaurus,” Stiles interferes, “and let me tell you, ‘equal’ is _definitely_ not in there.”

Scott’s lips are still curving up in a crooked smile: Stiles doesn’t truly believe any of this, and he would be damned if he says any of it to Derek’s face, but his righteously indignant sarcasm always cheers Scott up, so it’s all that Stiles does to comfort him.

“You’ve got the gist of it,” Scott looks at Isaac. “As far as Derek is concerned, I’m not a mentor _‘like him’_ , not by a long shot. So it’s like he said: he’s still teaching.”

Isaac raises his eyebrows unamusedly. “Well, he’s kinda crap at it,” he says wryly, then snaps his head up worriedly and throws Scott a startled glance, belatedly realizing that he shouldn’t be badmouthing one mentor to another. They always keep forgetting Scott is one, too—his age coupled with Derek’s behavior does that.

Scott lets out a short surprised laugh—he remembers saying almost the very same thing once. “Isn’t he just,” he murmurs. “That being said, he’s got things he can teach, even if his methods leave a lot to be desired.”

“And because Scott haven’t killed anyone in the arena,” Stiles cuts in, “his personal training from hell has continued all these years and will probably end when Scott snaps and kills Derek himself.”

“Right,” Isaac chuckles a little, not sure if Stiles is having him on.

“He’s quite correct,” Scott agrees. “After the fact, I’ve been praised for my peaceful resolution by the Capitol. But Derek doesn’t see my clean win as commendable. He sees it as a flaw.”

Scott is patient about it, though, especially since Derek has laid off of him lately. The man’s not nearly as asinine as he used to be.

 

_“Stop fighting me, Scott,” Derek snaps at him._

_Scott freezes, blinking dumbly—in the middle of a sparring session the request seems odd._

_Derek rolls his eyes. “Not literally, moron.”_

_Scott narrows his eyes, offended. “You don’t listen to me, why should I listen to you?” he throws back._

_This makes Derek pause in spite of himself. “What exactly do I not listen to? That you don’t want to kill people?”_

_“Yes!” Scott exclaims, exasperated._

_“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way,” the man sneers, “but you’ll just have to suck it up. When another tribute attacks, you either give up and die, or fight and bloody your hands. You’re gonna hurt people, Scott. And if you’ll stop fighting my training, you **are** going to kill some. That’s the truth of the Games.”_

_“I won’t!” Scott explodes stubbornly. “And you can stop wasting your precious time on me, because I’m not going to win, isn’t that obvious? So just leave and be busy with whatever’s occupying you so much! I’d rather keep my integrity.”_

_Derek snorts at the last word, but his features relax. “It’s not ‘obvious’ to me, Scott. I wouldn’t put this much effort into your training if I didn’t think you could win.”_

_Scott lowers his head, unappeased. “You’re just saying that so I don’t give up.”_

_“It’s true that I don’t want you to give up,” Derek agrees. “But I’m not in the business of coddling and platitudes. You think your little buddy being here is all the help you need to figure this out—that his tricks and smarts will help you. But he will not be there for you when you’re inside. He cannot account for everything, and he will not prevent you from becoming like me. It’s inevitable.”_

_Scott is staring at him, torn between two conflicting desires: one is to be exactly like this man—strong, and agile, and able, and fearless; the other is to never be like him—arms bloody up to the elbows._

_Derek Hale has murdered six peoples in his Games._

_“You don’t get it yet, but I’m looking out for you,” he says softly, resting his hand on Scott’s shoulder._

_“I hate to break it to you,” Scott echoes, “but you kinda suck at it.”_

_Derek huffs out a surprised laugh, his sour expression lightening into something resembling maybe half a grin._

 

Scott has proven himself right in the end, and Derek refuses to call it a win. He says it’s stupid luck, and he’s not wrong there, either. But imagining himself in the arena, crowded by other tributes, Scott just thought of his mother who raised him to be a good boy, a good person, and he couldn’t imagine bringing death to anyone.

A year after the Games it seemed like Derek was still punishing him for it. Scott used to think he was reminding Derek of the person he used to be and Scott managed to stay—a living proof that you can come out of the Games unscathed. As time passed, he learnt that he didn’t come out nearly as unscathed as he thought, and that his refusal (or maybe inability) to kill was only a smidgeon of the reason why Derek was still hounding him.

He knew the real issue that has put a wedge between them.

_“She’s not the one for you, Scott. You’re sixteen. No one falls in love at sixteen **forever**.”_

_“We did. Why do you have to be so stubborn about it?”_

_“Oh, **I’m** stubborn?” Derek snorts, indignant._

_“You’re ruining it for me. I won. I don’t have any more harrowing obligations in my future! I can have this, so why can’t you just be happy for me? Or—or—at least, ‘alright’, if the concept of ‘happy’ is something you have to look up in a dictionary?”_

_“…Because she’ll break your heart.”_

 

Derek too has proven himself right.

 

***

 

_“—Don’t try to do all at once—”_

_“—Just pick one thing and stick with it—”_

_“—And be bloody amazing at it—”_

The atmosphere during the dinner is nervous and jumpy. In the morning both he and Derek said all they can to set Isaac and Erica’s minds at ease, to put them into a right mood to pass well.

“I think I did okay,” Isaac contributes, his eyes shifty and unsure.

Erica’s being more tight-lipped and it is clear she thinks she didn’t do a very good job.

They speak of meaningless things. Stiles is talking about some rumors he has picked up on other floors—he can always be relied on to fill tense silences. Peter as well—out of the two Hales he might be less invested in the tributes, but Derek can’t be expected to keep up small talk if his life depended on it.

On the contrary, he seems to be on the verge of asking outright just how bad Erica was, but Scott’s silent glaring seems to stop him. She’s gonna talk when she’s ready—even if it’s after the results. And if she won’t talk at all, there is no need to embarrass her further. She’s under too much pressure as it is.

After dinner, they all relocate to the main hall with the giant television embedded into a wall. Scott has learnt to hate this room: this is where he and the other mentors watch tributes die.

Isaac and Erica don’t know that, don’t think about it at all. They settle in, as Caesar and Claudius are prepared to imbue the Panem audience with their commentary of witty repartees.

The avox are moving in and out of the room, and Finstock joins them at some point. Scott has learnt to block out the sound of swinging doors, his eyes firmly trained on the screen where the first Careers are about to be presented, and he doesn’t pay much attention to his surroundings. Isaac, however—who’s sitting next to him on the sofa—keeps turning his head in alarm every time, so he’s the first to notice her.

“Who’s that?” he asks, staring behind Scott’s back, his eyes as wary as always. Scott turns around as well, startled, before his face relaxes into a smile.

“That’s—”

“ _ **Lydia**!_ ” Stiles exclaims loudly, perching up eagerly at the sight of her. She rolls her eyes patronizingly at his outburst, but there’s a smile hiding in the corners of her mouth. He comes up to her with his springy gait and gives her an awkward fumbly hug—but they have come a long way since four years ago.

It comes as a certain surprise to all of them, but Stiles really gets along with Lydia. Scott thinks at first it’s because he maintains a shallow crush on her: as far as Capitol girls go, Lydia Martin really is exceptionally beautiful. But she’s also District Three, and she’s smart (an Engineer, no less) and funny, and worth knowing if you care to try. Derek is stuck the longest in his desire to chase her off—that seems to be a theme with him—mostly because he’s worried she reminds Scott of his time in the Games. But he likes having Lydia around, and Derek soon settles down as well.

“You know our advanced training area?” Scott turns to Isaac. “She equipped it for us.”

Isaac’s face hovers between curiosity and confusion. “Howwhy?” he asks both words in one go, and Scott snorts a little.

“Lydia’s technically District Three—engineering—but her name has never been in the lottery: her father is one of the technicians who regulate the arena. And since this year, so is she.”

“So why isn’t she helping her own District?” Isaac frowns, glancing her up and down distrustfully, as she’s talking with Stiles.

“She doesn’t know them,” Scott shrugs, his tone pensive. It’s not like he hasn’t wondered the same thing, and he’s got no sure answer. The way Lydia is connected to them—it’s more fragile and confusing and less tangible than real friendship, and he cannot put it to words to make Isaac understand—at least, not without divulging their whole history, something he has neither time, nor a mentor’s duty to do. “She knows us,” he offers instead. “We are… almost kin, oddly enough. We have gone through some bad stuff together, things that bring you close, make you put friends of another District before strangers of your own.”

The words, when he says them, pang painfully in his heart—a reminder of other conducts, less loyal and generous than that of Lydia Martin. Memories best left undisturbed.

They don’t have to wait long. The photo of the first tribute comes up on the screen, then the score is proudly flashed below. Districts One has an eight and a ten. District Two is both nines. Two more Districts, and then it’s their turn.

Erica tenses up in her corner of the sofa, and her nails dig into the armrest nervously. Her image comes up—she’s so nervous Scott thinks she’s about to break Isaac’s hand whom she grabbed—and her score is a five. Which is neither here, nor there.

Her breath comes out ragged as she slowly unclasps her hand.

“Hey,” he whispers, his hand sliding over Isaac to squeeze her knee reassuringly. “Hey, it’s _fine_. It’s a statistical average, because the Gamemakers are being lazy about any tribute who is not a Career. Just you wait. I guarantee you at least ten more fives—they aren’t usually impressed by other Districts, or pay much heed to them.”

Their attention is diverted back to the screen, where Isaac’s photo from the initial ceremony comes up. He looks so strikingly different in all the makeup he was put in. Scott watches him wrangle his fingers and suppresses a warm desire to grab his hand and calm him down as well—Derek keeps telling him not to be so protective, that it would be his downfall one day. Today is not that day…

Isaac scores an eight.

It brings an oddly pleasurable smile to Scott lips to see it, and he can feel the other boy relax and sag into the couch with a much lighter heart.

“Excellent! Marvelous job, Lahey!” Finstock erupts in gleeful congratulations, generous in his exuberance, making the boy turn crimson.

He smiles. He is not a frequent smiler—in fact, in the course of the past week Scott has hardly ever seen him do it. But now a genuine smile breaks out on his face, unguarded and relieved, and it takes Scott by surprise how innocent and young and fragile it makes him look. It’s so wide and open, Scott can’t help but grin back, eager to share in Isaac’s joy. Looking around, he finds others feel it as well.

“Good job, Isaac,” Derek says gruffly and slaps him on the shoulder.

“Indeed,” even Peter seems to be more genuinely pleased than he usually allows himself to be.

Erica attempts to hug him, and he allows it, stiffly and awkwardly, not really moving from his position on the couch. He seems to not be computing the idea, sagging further and further into his seat, and his breathing is becoming rapid.

He’s not used to it, Scott realizes—not used to success. His hands are balled up into fists and resting on his knees. Scott says nothing, no congratulatory murmurs, but he places his hand over Isaac’s, urging him to relax. Isaac startles, even more awkward—he’s not a particularly tactile person—but Scott is. He doesn’t move his hand, allowing it to warm Isaac’s clammy fingers.

They keep watching to the end, of course, to be on the lookout for the possible surprises, even though Peter opens a bottle of champagne that they are sipping with goofy smiles. There are eight fives beside Erica, and the fact is of some small comfort to her: she does not like to be mediocre, but at least she’s far from being the only one to be snubbed by the Gamemakers.

In truth, from odd bits and pieces of phrases Erica lets slip, Scott suspects exactly what was the difference in their performance: Isaac is nothing if not obedient, and he follows commands. Derek has told him to showcase what he has learned with the knives and fighting techniques, and Isaac did, and he was splendid. Erica is proud and brimming with self-confidence, and she tried to be good at literally _everything_. And in the end, she was judged to be ordinary…

“How much did you guys score?” Isaac wonders, as the last tribute from District Twelve scores a five, and someone turns the volume down, letting the picture play out in silence.

The mentors exchange glances—surprisingly, they don’t get asked that a lot.

“Well,” Peter is the first to speak, “I got a six, nothing particularly special about me,” he says in mock self-deprecation. “Derek was a nine—sort of a dark horse that you think might win, but you’re not really sure if you want to cheer for him or if he scares you. A rare score for our District, too.”

“And Scott?” Isaac looks at him with genuine curiosity.

“Eight. Like you,” Scott answers, meeting his eyes. “Guess Derek’s training rubbed off on me.”

“Guess so did yours,” Isaac echoes. For a moment he holds Scott’s gaze before dropping his eyes and shifting uncomfortably. Scott hides a surprised smile, caught off-guard by the sentiment.

“I keep almost forgetting that the Hales aren’t really Careers,” Erica mentions wryly, although her mood has somewhat improved.

Isaac snorts loudly. “As if. You guys are nothing like the Careers.”

Scott pauses, biting the tip of his tongue slightly, as his smile promptly vanishes, and he feels Stiles’s eyes darting to him warily.

“Do tell,” Peter drawls lazily. “Not sure if you’re trying to pay us a compliment, or not.” His words are light, nonchalant, but his tone is telling Issac to take a step back, and his eyes are steel and warning—not that the boy notices.

“Of course it’s a compliment,” he exclaims, looking at Erica for support. She just rolls her eyes at him, uninvested in the topic. “We’ve got quite an eyeful of them this week—they’re cruel and they’re a menace.”

“Yes, well, brute force is not a thing to boast about having since all it stands for is the ability to exploit the weaknesses of others,” Peter says with superiority, glancing pointedly at Derek, who glowers at him, and Scott is immensely grateful to them for this little show, a diversion of attention that protects his own memories.

But Isaac doesn’t let the matter rest. “It’s not the strength or brutality that concerns me,” he says. “The worst part is that, they don’t seem like killers. I see them leading other tributes on, prepping for partnerships and easy kills. At heart, they’re all traitors.”

Scott winces, his teeth gritting so tightly he thinks they’ll break. “Excuse me,” he half moans, half coughs, getting up. He knows he’s being immature about it, unable to keep a cool face, that he needs to be handling it better, but Isaac’s words are bringing memories of painful mistakes he was warned he’d make, and he didn’t listen.

“I’ll be right back,” he says curtly.

As he goes, he can feel the others’ stares on his skin, like cobweb.

 

***

 

_“You’re from a family of Careers?!” Scott is aware he sounds scandalized, but his tone of voice cannot be helped._

_She reddens and hushes at him, looking positively mortified. All he can think of is that the blush makes her look so pretty. A smile, embarrassingly goofy, settles on his face._

_“That’s awesome,” he promises. “Why didn’t you say anything?”_

_“Because!” She gives him a long-suffering look and exhales, “I’m almost seventeen.”_

_“Seventeen?!” And there’s that tone again. His brows slide upward._

_“Yeah, shh,” she giggles slightly, covering his lips with her index finger, but she is still visibly unsettled. “That’s exactly the kind of reaction I’m trying to avoid.”_

_“Why?” he echoes, catching her hand and retracting it from his face while interlacing their fingers. “I mean, I admire that: you’re your own person, not conforming to what’s expected of you. And it’s very… human,” he finishes lamely, because of course it’s human, and the Careers are clearly human too—way to go with diplomatic comments about her kith._

_Allison turns to stare at him pointedly, and he begins to stutter. “I—I mean, I’m betting a lot of your family has gone to the Games, and many must have not returned. After knowing death first-hand so often, I wouldn’t be eager to participate myself.”_

_He’s not particularly eager without it, but what he means is that he’s thinking, constantly, of how he’s mother going to fare with losing him and he cannot stomach the idea. With Allison having lost someone already, possibly many someones, he cannot imagine willingly going to the Games._

_Slowly, Allison smiles at him. It is an honest bittersweet smile that breaks something inside of him, and it makes her look radiant. “Thank you,” she whispers and leans in to kiss him softly. “You’re the first person I know to actually get it,” she mutters, nuzzling closer to him, their foreheads touching. “The others from my District, they are mostly Careers as well. And they don’t.”_

 

***

 

He rides to the rooftop of the tower. It is normally not done—breaching the perimeter of other Districts—but the only way to the rooftop is through Level Twelve. And Scott knows all the nooks to slink past Effie Trinket—he has done so before, to watch the night skies with Allison.

He used to smuggle her to his Level at first and they would ride the elevator up together, holding hands and giggling, inflamed by their own daringness. She learnt the shadowy pathway, and later they would leave each other messages on the glass panes in the Training Center, when—his train of thought momentarily pauses there, because those are less than happy memories.

They left each other messages when she lived in this building as well…

_“Why would you do this?” he whispers with profound disappointment._

_They have always been so great together: no quarrels, no misunderstandings, no stupid mishaps other couples are prone to—that wasn’t them. They were perfect. He never imagined a scenario where they would fight, where he would want to raise his voice at her, but tonight he does._

_“After all the things you’ve said—no, **promised**! You _ said _you will never put anyone through this! This isn’t you!” He is searching her face for a weakness he can press into until she caves, but finds nothing._

_“But it **is** , Scott,” she demurs. “I’m an Argent, and Argents have always been the winners.”_

_“That is not what your father has taught you,” he says in a low voice. Her face darkens resentfully—he cannot even begin to understand what is going on between her and her father right now, but it was not an argument he should have made._

_“No, it’s what **his** father reminded me of. My refusing to participate because I don’t want to—it’s _ selfish _. I have to forget about my desires and respect my family.” Her voice is assured. She believes what she’s saying, as heartbreaking as it is._

_“And what am I supposed to do?” he all but screams. “I train these kids hoping they will win. How am I supposed to feel about this, knowing that it’s either_ **them** _or_ **you** _?”_

_“I know how you’ll feel. Because you’re Scott,” she smiles down on him, like he’s endearing, and he has never felt this much condescension coming from her. “You try to shoulder everyone’s problems. But your amount of guilt will not change the outcome. What happens in the arena—what_ will _happen—it’s not your choice. It’s fate, and you can do nothing about it.”_

_She says her piece, and turns to leave. That’s that._

_He watches her walk away._

_Back on their Level Derek and Peter are waiting for him, and he cannot bear to look at either one of them, does not want to hear their passive-aggressive_ I told you so _s. He thinks if they’ll start on it, he’ll scream and punch and have a major meltdown._

_He wants to go get trashed with Stiles._

_“What did she say?” Derek stops him, and it sounds like what he actually wants to say is,_ Please, do tell us about her excuses.

_“She’s doing it because her family needs her to,” he mumbles in a dull voice._

_He expects mockery and resistance and to fight Derek over it, but the man just exchanges looks with Peter—looks the meaning of which Scott cannot decipher—and shakes his head. “Of course she is,” he says, almost in that ‘I told you so’ voice, but instead of supercilious it just sounds exhausted._

_He looks at Derek, expecting him to elaborate, but the man remains angrily silent. The pause is interrupted by Peter saying, “You are very young, Scott. You will find someone better.”_

_They all get shitfaced that night, the four of them, and Derek and Peter are surprisingly supportive, the way they’ve never actually been when he was their tribute. It’s somewhat surprising, this gesture of sympathy and succor, but it’s also nice._

_He realizes at that moment quite clearly, that they are his family, and it is as real a knowledge as any—far more real than their platitudes which are lies. He will not find anyone better. There’s no girl better to find…_

 

The doors to the roof open with a whoosh, and Scott startles, his heart leaping into his throat. As he turns around, he lets himself imagine Allison coming through there, impossible as the thought is. He _knows_ it’s impossible, yet still droops a little when he sees Derek standing in the doorway. Sighing, he turns away.

Derek offers no explanation as he yanks a chair with his foot and moves it closer to Scott’s and sits down.

“How did you sneak past Effie?” Scott asks after a while.

“I didn’t,” he says brusquely, his eyes gleaming like steel. That’s right, no one refuses Derek Hale. Scott snorts.

The silence between them is not a comfortable one tonight, as Scott is slowly sloshing in self-pity.

“Have you heard from… District Two recently?” Derek asks after a while.

Scott snorts again, louder and with more contempt, because it is damned ironic that Derek should be consoling him about it, when he was the one forbidding it in the first place—would have forbidden it for good if he knew where to apply pressure.

Scott doesn’t begrudge him that: he knows now he had his reasons, and in his own gruff way he was trying to protect Scott from a fate he knew first hand. In the end, he was right—Scott did get his heart broken. Just not the way Derek had anticipated he would.

He says nothing in reply to his hesitant inquiry now. After all, they have always loathed for each other to be right.

 

***

 

Scott might not be as plagued by nightmares as he was the first few years, but he is still a reluctant sleeper. After Derek leaves him, to get up to whatever it is Derek gets up to do on his own dark sleepless nights, Scott watches the night city alone for a short while before coming down back to their Level.

(Privately, he hates that word. It reminds him of imprisonment somehow.)

He is startled to discover faint bluish light of a TV coming through the thin crack underneath the door to the main hall—their torture chamber, if they’re continuing down with the same metaphor. In that room the mentors watch twenty-three people get annually slaughtered, and unlike the cheering awed crowd, they know the bitter price of it.

Pushing the doors open, he discovers Isaac and Erica before the big screen, and they are watching Caesar Flickerman’s show—Isaac angling forward intently, catching every word, and Erica leaning into his side, for warmth and maybe comfort.

Scott does not expect anyone else to be staying up this late, least of all their tributes—he thought them to be ungodly tired after tonight. But it is not until the camera turns back to Caesar from the audience that he realizes with a stammer of his heart what _exactly_ it is their watching.

Caesar’s hair and eyelids are colored _‘chartreuse’_ —which is a very fancy way of saying ‘acid/vomit/green’. Caesar changes his color scheme every Hunger Games. And Scott remembers with poignant clarity when he wore this abhorrent color: it was when _Scott_ was the tribute in the Games.

As if on cue, Caesar asks his question, (Scott doesn’t listen too closely which one it is, and he doesn’t have to—he remembers all of them, as well as his own answers, word by word) and Scott sees his own face, younger and sweeter, appear on the screen.

Erica says something to Isaac—Scott cannot hear them either, perhaps it’s the ocean-like roar of blood in his ears—and Isaac nods. Scott lets his arms fall from the handles, pushing the doors wider, and strides into the room quietly. They don’t notice him.

“Mute,” he says, and the screen obediently turns the volume to zero. Isaac and Erica startle, turning around, and the girl curses under her breath, hitting pause rather redundantly. Trying to make themselves smaller, they take in his face with guilty expressions.

“I’m sorry,” Erica says. Scott isn’t sure what she’s apologizing for—they didn’t exactly do anything wrong. It isn’t even a breach of privacy, not when the Games are open for re-broadcasting. What Scott, or anyone else, did during the Games—every word of it is public property.

“We were just—” Erica blabbers in the face of his silence, then abruptly shuts up, unsure if he even cares to hear her excuses. “I mean…” she looks to Isaac for support, but the boy regards Scott in wary silence, his eyes leering carefully from under the brow. His face is filled with a sense of disgrace.

“It’s just, we’re supposed to have our interviews,” Erica says finally, turning to face Scott when she finds no support in Isaac. Still seated on the couch and with Scott towering over them from behind it, they look rather like scolded children.

“We just thought we’d watch…” she gulps and stammers, but makes herself continue, “for helpful tips, you know. Because I’m completely useless at the whole social scene, and I get that we need training to survive, but we also need to win over sponsors, I mean, that would be nice, really helpful.”

She’s really garrulous when she’s nervous, and it looks like she wants to turn to Isaac for support once again, except she’s sort of too afraid to drop her eyes from Scott’s face, as if he might immolate her with his eyes while she’s not looking. Being a mentor, he’s far more intimidating to his tributes than he actually is. Also, knowing what’s on that footage, it might just be the expression on his face.

“It’s three in the morning,” he tells them politely, like there’s nothing else that should be bothering him.

“Right!” Erica jumps up from her seat like it’s on fire. “We should totally go!” She’s still eyeing both him and Isaac uneasily.

The boy stands up as well, wincing contritely, and hunches his shoulders a little, like he wants to dissipate. They would need to work on that before the interviews, Scott notes absent-mindedly. Isaac is very conflicted: some days Scott gets a feeling that he wants to give up and not even fight for it, that he’s one of those tributes that perish during the first day’s slaughter; other days there is a steely determination in him that makes Scott hopeful—like the way he’s just been watching that tape. Like his life depended on it.

“I’ll tell Derek to give you a late start tomorrow. You’re no use to us on barely five hours of sleep.” He sighs unhappily—Derek’s gonna blow a gasket. “Go,” he motions with his chin towards the exit, as they still linger guiltily.

Erica moves skittishly and twists her hands apologetically. “We should have asked, I’m sorry,” she’s saying, then winces as another thought hits her belatedly. “Shit. I mean. We should not have done it at all,” she drawls.

Scott says nothing, his eyes hypnotized by the flickering image of his own interview paused on the screen. Erica finally takes a hint and scatters. Isaac pushes the remote into Scott’s hand, and his fingers clasp around it mechanically.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, just once, but he truly means it.

Scott cannot bring himself to say anything to put them at ease, cannot muster up the words to reassure them that they actually had a good idea. He stands there motionless until they leave, feeling the weight of the remote in his palm, like it’s a stone weighing him down.

Hesitant and slow he raises his hand and resumes playback, switching the volume back to normal.

Caesar’s animated face comes alive again, and he’s winking at the audience from the big screen. Scott’s heart swells painfully from the memory of that day.

 _“Well, what makes you different, Scott? What separates you from the others?”_ Caesar asks the younger him on the screen. _“What gives you that special zest that you think will help you win the Games?”_

The boy on the screen hesitates only a moment. He looks so much younger, and all the more foolish. _“Love,”_ he says with a disarming and bashful smile that only naivety of youth can produce. He thinks himself so fatuously childish now, but back then, people found him completely endearing.

_“I’m gonna win the Games for love.”_

  

***

 

_—As he’s turning around, he bumps into someone else—a girl, judging by a soft gasp that escapes her as he makes her drop some of the papers she’s been carrying._

_“I’m sorry, I’ll get it,” he offers quickly, dropping to his knees and picking them all up, as well as the pen she must have dropped too. Straightening up, he hands it over and freezes._

_“Thank you,” she exhales, taking the papers from his suddenly numb hands._

_All he sees is a torrent of ebony hair, ivory skin and eyes like black pearls._

_“Uh, you’re holding my pen,” a melodic voice tries and fails at shaking him out of his reverie. Scott knows he’s staring but it cannot be helped. Suddenly he knows exactly how his best friend felt: utterly dumbstruck._

_Slowly, as if in a daze, he offers her the pen._

_“Thanks,” she drops, polite enough to ignore his ogling which she hardly could have missed._

_As she’s walking past, he finally snaps out of it. “Wait!” he exclaims. “Let me help you with that.” He catches up with her, and puts his hands on the pile._

_She smiles hesitantly. “I can’t. I can’t really deter the tributes from their training,” she whispers._

_“No. Please, do!” he insists, taking possession of her stack. “Where to?”_

_Her smile is both gentle and striking at once. “Follow me,” she accepts his clumsy offer of help gracefully._

_She is a Capitol girl, and he’s a big stinking hypocrite, but she’s amazingly different, too: from her he doesn’t get the impression of pretense or evasions—every expression of her face is open and honest._

_And follow her he does. He doesn’t know it yet, but his life is about to become all about following Allison Argent…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, I'm enjoying working in the subtle nods to the TV show in here. :3 Also, I think I'm kinda in love with my characters a little bit there.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If my calculations are correct, we are now halfway through the story.  
> Thank you all who is reading and commenting. I really appreciate it!

For the first time since coming to the Capitol Isaac wakes up before _being_ woken. Scott must have kept his word and allowed them to sleep in, but even unconscious Isaac is a bundle of nerves, and his own anxiety rouses him prematurely. He lies quietly in his bed, acutely aware that none of this is permanent—not this room that doesn’t belong to him, not the routine of days here that seems so deceptively steady, nor even that he breathes.

He doesn’t allow himself to laze about too long, lest he falls asleep again. Getting up and getting dressed, he sneaks out of the room, still feeling slightly panicked: he’s begun getting used to this place, and it doesn’t help to know that in a few days the Games are beginning. The knowledge towers behind him like a giant shadow, like a wall of dark water that threatens to drown him in despondency and fear. He wants to fall down, hide his face in his knees, shut his eyes, cover his ears, and let it wash over him and be gone.

This is not an unfamiliar terror: he used to have these episodes back when his father was still alive. By the time he reaches the main hall, he looks like he has been chased here by a ghost. He tries not to show it, lowering his head, but it is a relief not to find the room empty.

Derek and Scott are in here also. Isaac catches himself thinking that he has no idea how they pass their time when they’re not thinking up ideas to help Erica and himself. He tries to brush the thought away, because it only serves to underline that he has no time to figure any of them out, and he has come to realize he wants to.

“Finally up?” Derek grouses, giving Scott a sharp glare, unhappy about his lenience.

Isaac can think of nothing better to do than bob his head, feeling nerves knotting in the pit of his stomach at the prospect of being interrogated. The mentors, however, pay him no mind, discussing something in a low tone of voice and leaving him free to pick out his choice of breakfast out of all the rich food the tables are always overladen with.

“So,” Scott speaks up suddenly. “Last night Isaac and Erica have decided to show some initiative. They’ve been perusing our interview footage from the Games.”

Isaac draws himself up, straight as a ramrod, and drops a plum guiltily before cautiously turning around. There is still that ingrained fear in him—to be unwittingly at fault, to break some unspoken rule that will result in bruises and the cold. He knows better than to direct such thoughts at his mentors, but the panic comes over him first and fast, in a rush of unbidden instinct that he cannot shed.

He wishes urgently for Erica to be in here with him. She’s bolder and blunter than he is, never mind that it was also her idea and her discovery, and he doesn’t know how to excuse their snooping around were the mentors to ask it of him. They do not, and Scott is smiling entirely in good humor.

“The truth is,” he says, “we had the same idea all along. We are your mentors, after all, and preparing you for the interviews is as much a part of our job as anything.”

“Not our favorite part, though,” Derek interjects sourly.

“No,” Scott agrees with a chuckle. Isaac studies his face with apprehension, not trusting his easy smile.

He seemed genuinely displeased last night: although, perhaps, it was not anger, but him being caught off guard, uncomfortable and exposed.

“The interviews are the fakest part of it yet,” Derek elaborates. “I can train you to fight your way out of a scuffle, and I can find a stylist who will make you look exceptional, but talking out there will be your job. And the questions they ask—they are inane and bothersome and merit nothing but a _‘None of you fucking business’_ in response. They carry on like you have a life ahead of you—”

“What Derek is trying to say,” Scott interrupts, “is that the audience of the Capitol wants to be fooled.” His expression at that is bitterly condescending. “They want to think you’re _glad_ for being here. They want to think they _know_ you.”

Isaac has seen enough interviews in his life to know exactly what Scott means by that. Some of the tributes manage to be just the right amount of open and vulnerable and determined to get you to root for them. Scott himself was one of those. Isaac is doubtful he can manage the feat.

“Now, Caesar is a good man,” Scott says. “He always tries to make the best out of you and he’s very perceptive. He’ll know what to ask. _You_ must know how to answer.”

Derek is scowling when he corrects him by saying, “You must know how to lie.” And isn’t that just the thing Derek Hale finds the most loathsome?

As if on cue, he stands up abruptly and impatiently, clearly disinclined to pursue the topic. “I will fetch Erica,” he says curtly. “I tire of this waiting.”

Scott nods, his expression remaining serene. Isaac comes to sit by him, still perturbed about the incident with the interview.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he mutters, but when Scott turns to look at him, Isaac finds it much easier to study the patterns on the rug—which suddenly hold so much fascination.

“As I said, you did nothing wrong,” Scott responds softly, and even in his absolving tone of voice Isaac can hear the smile. It doesn’t reassure him.

He is so perfectly polite, Scott McCall is, made even more so by his life here, in the Capitol. Sometimes Isaac suspects that Scott is saying one thing but means quite another, and how is he supposed to decipher these meanings anyway?

“Isaac…” Scott tells him wearily. “Why are you wasting time worrying about me, when you should be thinking about yourself? I said it’s fine, and so it is. You should be concerned with the Games.”

He leans back into the sofa and stares in front of himself. His eyes are glazed as he is reliving the events he knew first-hand.

“When you’re in the Arena, you will be observed by all of the Panem. You will be aware of the cameras watching you—it’s impossible not to be. Someone is always looking in. And you will be playing up some things, creating a spectacle—not because it’s something you know how to do, or it comes naturally, but because being Watched will define you. It is what the Games truly are about, more so than the fighting.” He turns to stare at Isaac from somewhere far away. “The interview is a trial run of that.”

Isaac shudders to think that. He has never thought of it that way—although it makes perfect sense now that he does—and it doesn’t inspire much confidence. He’s not much to look at, and he doubts he can make anyone care whether he lives or dies—he has certainly failed at it back home. As a general rule, he doesn’t like being observed too closely.

Scott’s hand slithers onto his wrist quite unexpectedly, squeezing it encouragingly. “Don’t let it bother you,” he says, not just with kindness—Scott McCall has that for everyone—but with concern that seems to be directed at Isaac alone. “It’s not a _vulnerable_ position. There is power in being the one who is watched. You become the hero of their adventure, someone they can rely on, identify with, someone to give them drama and heroism and action. And you can use that position to influence them.”

Isaac feels his skin tighten, conscious of the contact. He has never liked being touched, but he’s found it to be an integral part of Scott’s demeanor, so infused in him he probably doesn’t notice when he does it. Still, he stiffens, keenly aware of the warmth of another human hand on his own.

“But we _aren’t_ them,” they are interrupted almost instantly by Erica, who is standing in the doorway with Derek. She has overheard Scott’s observation and joins in the discussion immediately as she enters, approaching them purposefully. “How can they ever sympathize with us if we’re like… like circus animals to them!”

“Because for all their poppycock, they are still human,” Scott says. “Now, I won’t say they are just as human as us” —his tone adopts a pungent hue— “because they’re not. But they want a hero who is ordinary and simple and whose charm is in his lack of pretense. They do not imagine themselves in your place, they know a Tribute is supposed to be different. And they want you to stagger them with your disarming simplicity.”

Isaac finds it odd to think about Scott and Derek as being disarmingly simple for the sake of the crowd they detest. Himself though, he finds that yes, he can be sincere in his ignorance without feigning it.

The memory bank of the television contains every footage of every Game, (as he and Erica have discovered last night). Scott jumps between folders of Games and interviews with assuredness of a ready memory, and Isaac wonders how much of it is the duty of displaying the footage to the tributes, and how much is self-flagellating rewatching of it for no reason but in the memory of.

There seems to be no order in which they choose them. It’s the 71st Games, then the 68th, then the 72nd and as back as the 60th, and so on, picking out random tributes, boys and girls, young and younger, all underlining their point: _disarming simplicity_.

But amidst all this selection what they never show them is the tributes from District Five. It raises no question of why: not because they’d done poorly, but because it’s too painful a reminder. Whether they had done adequately or lacking is not something Scott and Derek are willing or qualified to determine—because they cared for each of them. And lost them all.

 _“What has your experience here been so far?”_ Caesar asks a girl from District Seven kindly, who is sitting there in a crimson dress of a color so bright it hurt Isaac’s eyes. He has never seen a hue of such intensity before, but that’s what Panem is all about.

 _“Exhausting,”_ the girl exhales, like it has been a burden not to admit it. _“You people celebrate all the time, and it’s a harder job than mine.”_ She chuckles slightly. _“And I do carpenter work.”_

Caesar laughs. _“Must be a whole different life out here for you, am I right?”_

The girl smiles timidly, shrugging slightly. _“The festivities, yes, but not so much otherwise. You take pleasure in every day, in every moment. And while life in District Seven may not be an endless holiday, the concept is not something alien to me. We try to enjoy every good moment we catch too…”_

Isaac finds it must require immense self-possession: to describe the people of Panem how they see themselves, without it coming off as either an offence or brown-nosing. He wonders if his own answer could be this cordial, or even this positive.

_“If you were not the tribute of this year’s Games, what would you be doing right about now?”_

The boy from District Four smiles. He has a weathered tanned face, and strikingly brilliant eyes. _“Oh, nothing as exciting as this, I’m sure. I’m a simple person who likes and does simple things. The Capitol is easily overwhelming, and I find myself missing the most paltry things: the taste of the fish that I caught with my own hands, sitting on my modest little terrace, the sound of the sea…”_

Because that is something even the people of the Capitol in all their overabundant gorging can relate to: love of home and of familiar things and of uncomplicated gratification.

 _“All right, then tell me this,”_ Caesar asks of a tribute from Two, a large boy whose biceps look like rocks. _“We’re all saying how it takes everything of us to win, but you seem to be cut out of sturdier stuff, so what I want to know is if there’s anything you wouldn’t let yourself do to win the Games?”_

The boy considers it with a pensive expression. _“I am not afraid to lose, if I have fought fairly,”_ he ends up saying carefully. _“I do not want to think I would stoop to some lowly tactics of deceit, though. When I kill someone in the Arena, I want to see that person’s face—not because I’m cruel, but because to do otherwise would be a weakness.”_

It is a horrible thing to say. Not so horrible for a Career tribute, perhaps, who expects to win. But Isaac can see why Derek instructs Scott to show it to them. The boy knows he has high chances of winning, yet he is still prepared to offer his opponents the respect they might not even deserve. However warped, his sense of honor is still winsome.

 _“I try not to think about the Games for now,”_ a girl from Eight promises, when Caesar asks her about fear. _“There will be plenty of time to be scared later on. Right now, I’m just focusing on one moment at a time.”_

 _“So what makes you most nervous at this moment?”_ he smiles in a kind and amused fashion.

 _“Oh, probably stepping on the hem of my dress and diving off the stage,”_ she laughs, and some of the audience joins in. _“That would be an embarrassing stain on my reputation, **especially** if I win,”_ she tucks her knees up and hugs them, grinning. Her eyes dance with glee and an honest belief in what she is saying. _“Imagine someone saying, ‘Look here, there goes the fearsome winner,’ and then I stagger and break my face, and ‘Ooh, ouch, that looked like it hurt. Well, this is awkward.’ I’ll end up being the clumsiest winner you’ve ever had, just you wait.”_

She’s blushing faintly, like she can imagine the humiliation vividly. The audience is roaring with laughter. In spite of himself, Isaac is smiling as well.

“What about the 69th Games, then?” Peter asks, and Isaac stiffens nervously—as usual, no one has heard him coming in, and while Isaac is getting used to his ominous sneaking around and being hardly helpful, today his suggestion seems like a loaded one. He throws a worried glance at Scott.

He takes it without as much as a blink, but he’s not smiling, and that above all else leaves Isaac unsettled.

“I’m sure our tributes would like to see you lead by example, no?” Peter approaches the sofa and leans over its back, whispering into Isaac and Scott’s ears both. “Now, Derek—well, we know he hasn’t fared well, what with his blunt hatred and derision. But you Scott, you are one of the favorites still, even four years later.”

Scott slightly inclines his head away from Peter—which, considering the resolute reserve they all possess, almost constitutes as a squirm. Peter has this uncanny ability to deliver compliments in a way that seems creepy and unwanted, a trait he’s perfectly aware and unashamed of having. Isaac wonders what he’s playing at, suggesting something so clearly upsetting to a fellow mentor—one who is supposed to be his friend.

He notices too that Peter doesn’t include himself among the examples to be followed. Granted, his own Games have been eighteen years ago, and a lot has changed in people expectations since. However, more likely than not the omission has everything to do with his penchant for secrecy.

“Good idea.” Scott doesn’t draw attention to the matter by arguing. Nonchalantly he raises his hand with the remote and finds the folder “69” and the file that is marked, _Interview, D5_. It begins to play from the very beginning, and Scott sits with his hands folded, indicating neither that he knows they have seen most of it already, nor how much the situation disagrees with him—although Isaac sees how he is stiff all over.

On the screen, his younger self has longer hair and softer puffier features. He was fifteen then, Isaac knows, but he looks even younger. Looks like a _target_. And yet, he has made so many sponsors bet on himself—that’s why Erica was so curious. He’s charming during the interview, he comes onto the stage smiling brilliantly and maintains the smile throughout, answers spilling out of him easily—exactly how he has advised, honest and simple. But nothing of what he says or does suggests what has inspired so much adoration for him back then, and Isaac thinks the real reason lies beyond the moment where he’s interrupted them last night.

 _“What makes you different?”_ Caesar asks, and young Scott’s expression has an air of vulnerable surprise before he smiles, timid and endearing, and if Isaac has thought him kind before, he is aware now that Scott has hardened much—because he no longer seems to be capable of smiles like that one.

The boy leans forward, just so, like he’s about to reveal some startling secret; and he does.

 _“Love,”_ he says, and his eyes are shining with the candor of his conviction. _“I’m gonna win the Games for love.”_

The crowd croons softly and hushes, like something sacrosanct has sauntered among them with that confession.

 _“Ahh,”_ Caesar echoes quietly, with just as much reverence. _“There’s a girl then? Back in the District?”_

 _“No, she’s from around here,”_ Scott admits with a teenage blush. _“She’s the most incredible person in the world. She knows who she is,”_ his smile stretches wider and he looks straight into the camera, directing it at the unnamed girl, and at the same time making it appear like he’s looking straight at _you_.

 _“Well,”_ Caesar beams at him benevolently, _“that’s certainly an incentive not to be trifled with. They say one can move mountains for their love.”_

Scott keeps smiling earnestly. _“I will certainly try.”_

They get up, shake hands, and the recording ceases. The room is very still, vibrating with old memories and wounds Isaac has no business knowing about. He is afraid to move.

It is Derek who pries the remote from Scott’s rigid fingers.

“I think that’s about enough inspiration for you two,” he states brusquely, pointing the remote at the screen in irritation. It blinks and turns blank.

Isaac remains motionless, embarrassed and disquieted, feeling like he has glimpsed into something very private. Logically, he knows it wasn’t that, never could have been: there were eyes on Scott, always, it was never an intimate declaration. But judging from Scott’s terse expression now, it is still something he’d rather not share.

“Go. Brain storm,” Derek dismisses them somberly. “Go to the Training Level, if you like, or rest up some more.”

“No training?” Erica asks sharply, almost suspiciously.

“After dinner,” Derek echoes darkly. It sounds like he’d rather have them train now, but Scott must have persuaded him to cut them some slack for a short while. “You’ve passed your test yesterday, might as well have some rest.”

“The scoring wasn’t our test, the Games will be,” Erica argues. There is no confidence in her of an assured victory, of _any_ victory, and it rattles her. She cannot get by without a feeling of solid ground underneath, and the fear of what she might be missing, what she might be left unaware of deprives her of any sort of balance. Isaac is plagued with the same fears and doubts, but they do not seem to leave him as unhinged.

“Wouldn’t do you any good to run yourselves into the ground before they start then,” Derek bites back. “You wanna hear about the Games some more? Here it is. They are chaotic and uncontrollable, and many are afraid of losing themselves there. So you should find yourselves some ballast”—he looks at them intently, and where for a moment Isaac suspected Derek of being patronizing and irrelevant, he isn’t, not in the slightest. The insight he imparts might be as vital as his physical training—“a knowledge that keeps you collected, keeps your head in the game and reminds you of _you_ , of your goal. To win it. There should be something to **_anchor_ ** you. Think on that.”

He turns away, dismissive, and after a brief pause Erica gets up. Scott has long since risen from his place and is standing by the large window looking out listlessly. Isaac is not eager to leave his and Derek’s company. He is alone enough as it is, and if he’s allowed some time to process what is happening to his life, a little respite from Derek’s exhausting trainings, he’d rather spend it in the presence of the mentors.

Erica, however, is restless and seems keen to be dismissed. She looks at Isaac expectantly, but he shakes his head minutely, and with a roll of her eyes she leaves him behind. He watches her go, his thoughts tainted with regret as always. She acts tough and arrogant but she’s really sweet, he finds, and he wishes once again for a different life and a chance to know her. No thought pangs him as sharp as this one: because even if he allows himself momentarily to believe that one of them will survive—and out of the two of them she has a far better chance—it means the other will be dead. If they survive, they might get a chance to know the people here, but never will they have an opportunity to truly know _each other_.

As he turns towards the mentors, he finds Scott following her with worried eyes too. Isaac imagines that somewhere along the lines of the utterly exhausting training, despite Isaac’s sullen lack of friendliness, Scott has managed to find a way to relate to him after all—some unimaginable comprehension that Isaac cannot guess but appreciates nonetheless. He can feel a connection there. Just as he can feel Scott’s lack of understanding of Erica.

“So…” he breaks the tense silence carefully. “About these… _‘anchors’_. What was yours then?”

Derek appears to him the kind of man who doesn’t like talking about personal things like this. That he elects to answer brings Isaac confidence that he means for him to succeed.

“Rage,” he replies. “I am, as you know, not an agreeable sort of person. But I was, at one point, a calmer one. I used to get upset and petulant about the misfortunes that befell me, instead of fighting back like I ought to have done. I had much anger bottled-up towards a lot of people, and in the Games it all finally came to a head. I just knew I couldn’t let them walk over me any longer. There was no choice but victory and vengeance.” He looks at Isaac, and the boy gulps at the darkness that he finds in Derek’s eyes. “That’s what the Careers certainly don’t have—they don’t know how it is to grow up with so much rage it’s just bursting out of you. It is a potent weapon, Isaac. Use it if you can.”

It’s a fine advice, although Isaac isn’t sure if he can follow it. He’s not much of an angry person. There’s a lot of hurt there, and bitterness, but it never amounts to fury. And if it ever will, Isaac shouldn’t think he’d be in control of his faculties like Derek fails to mention he is: his rage is controlled, it’s steered and directed. Isaac fears that if he ever gets properly angry, he’ll simply lose his head. Literally, perhaps.

He hesitates between curiosity and carefulness, stealing glances at Scott who remains by the window, looking out onto the city. He appears to pay no mind to their conversation, and so in a low voice, Isaac dares to ask, “And what Scott’s anchor was?”

Derek scowls unhappily. “Oh, it was _her_.”

Isaac cannot help but wonder what it is about that girl that elicits in Derek such hostility—not that he’s lacking in it otherwise. But there seems to be a particular reason here, beyond his all-inclusive hate towards everything Capitol—not abstract, but personal.

“What did that girl do to _you_?” he asks quietly but curiously. “Or to Scott?” He gives Derek enough credit to not exclude the possibility that he’s being angry on behalf of a friend.

“She’s from a family of Careers,” Derek replies resentfully, like that is an answer enough. Perhaps it is—and remembering his own remark about them yesterday and Scott’s abrupt excusing the room, Isaac feels blood rushing to his face in quick remorse.

But the truth is, he can’t help but agree with Derek—who is so big on honesty. There’s nothing honorable or fair about these three Districts coming into the Games over-prepared. It still doesn’t explain why that girl in particular. What has happened between her and Scott, and why is Derek so set against her? Where did she go? Isaac has certainly seen no indication of a girl in Scott’s life at present.

“Is that why?—” he lowers his tone of voice, then catches Derek’s warning glare and trips over his own words. “I mean, did she… _die_ , in the Games?”

Scott exhales loudly and turns from the window, looking at him with an eerily calm expression.

“No. She’s mentoring District Two.”

 

***

 

_…‘71’\Interview, D2…_

_“What do you see when you look in the mirror?”_

_“I know that people from my District are relying upon me. My family. It’s a great honor to be here, and I hope to make them proud. But when I look in the mirror, I can’t say I see a winner, or a symbol. I just see a girl. A daughter. A friend. I see my own person, and I hope that if I win, I will still be able to recognize my own reflection.”_

***

 

_It does not go over well when they find out. Derek has been supportive the night before, but the morning after he is resolutely silent._

_“You want us to trust you!” the boy tribute, Vernon Boyd, says accusingly. He is eighteen, older than Scott and larger too, large and as tall as Derek and almost as menacing. “How are we supposed to rely on our mentor when he’s banging the chick that’s our enemy?”_

_Scott throws a helpless glance at Derek, but the man stares unblinkingly in front of himself, offering no assistance. Scott scowls._

_“You’re right!” he gets up angrily. “I’m conflicted. But you know the best outcome I’m hoping for? That I won’t have to watch **you** kill her. That is all.” He is standing in front of Boyd and he probably looks ridiculous and overshadowed compared to his own tribute, but his fury and grief give him poise._

_“I’m in love with her, it’s true. But she **chose** this. She could have waited one year, **promised** to, in fact. Her own father wanted her to wait, and she would have been in the clear—but she chose to enter. She chose to betray me, and all that we have vowed, and you wanna know something? I grieve for her. But my loyalty to my “pack” is stronger than that. First and foremost, my loyalty is yours.”_

_He looks at them challengingly, but no one says anything. There’s grudging respect in Boyd’s eyes, and a certain level of gratitude, and Derek’s eyes are appreciative. In this moment, he’s as proud of him as he was when Scott won._

***

 

_The last time they meet on the rooftop it is dawn. The sky is gray, getting lighter by the minute. The morning is chilly, the clouds hanging low above them, blotting out the sunlight. You can see half the Capitol from up here, and Scott has always found it liberating, this place._

_Today it seems like a cage, and its walls needn’t be real—their bricks are loss and their mortar is desperation._

_Allison stands on the very edge, hugging a warm gray shawl around her shoulders, as wind tousles her thick black curls. She seems as crisp and fair as the morning around them, but for all that she’s a few feet away, she is unreachable. Lost to him._

_For a second Scott allows himself to imagine this as a moment from another life. He’s about to step out onto the lookout and welcome her into his arms, and her shoulder blades pressing into his chest will be the most real thing in his life. He will kiss her neck, just the spot where the spine is jutting out, and she will lean back into him, resting the back of her head and these lush beautiful hair against his shoulder. It’s a fantasy he’s eager to imagine except that he’s not allowed to do any of this any longer._

_(There is another moment from another life he can imagine: Chryssa lying in the tall grass, like she fell asleep there, but her eyes are glassy and stare unblinking into the white sky. He is the one to close her eyelids and the only person to weep over her, squeezing her cold stiff hand in his own—because no one else will ever get the chance.)_

_There is much he wants to say, but so little that will actually matter. She is a chosen tribute, and no words can change that horrible truth. He wants to tell her to be careful. To fight well. To be honorable. To not kill the weak. To not kill his tributes. To not kill the Allison that he knows. To come back to him, to never look at him again. That he will never love her again, will love her forever, that he can never stop._

_She is no longer a welcome sight that is his respite from the world. She is the knot of pain in his gut, lodged somewhere between his heart and the pit of his stomach._

_She kissed him before his interview, gently, on the cheek, leaving a smudge of glitter that she wiped with her thumb with a smile. He wanted to kiss her finger but didn’t dare._

_She kissed him on the mouth after he returned from the Arena—not just because he was the winner, but because she was waiting, because her heart soared that he lived. He cannot wait for her like that, and it makes him feel wretched. She has healed him after his victory, helped him stay Scott, stay himself. And now she’s breaking him, she’s extracting herself from within him, and with that loss he’s now someone different, a little colder and a little meaner and a little worse._

_He comes forward to stand by her side, shivering at the frosty breath of the morning. She does nothing, doesn’t move, doesn’t look at him. She stands still and silent and she stares at the city below._

_He wants to say_ I came to talk, _but he can’t open his mouth, so it is hardly the truth. He wants to hear her say_ I wanted to talk to you, _but he knows, in his heart, just as she does, that there’s nothing left to talk about. It makes him furious all the same—that tomorrow he will lose her, and it feels like he’s about to lose a lung, like she’s that inseverable—and she cannot even deign to look at him._

_“I wanted to give it back,” he says, unclasping his fist and letting the pendant hang freely from his index finger. A silver circle with uneven edges, a wolf and arrows imprinted on it. She gave it to him as a token to carry into the Games. The metal bears the warmth of his touch. But it has lost the meaning of a cherished keepsake._

_She stares at it numbly, her face shuttered from him just like her heart. “I don’t need it,” she says, and he has to swallow his pride, because he was not offering it as a token, but she chooses to refuse it as such anyway._

_“It was yours, your family’s. Put it on the shelf where it belonged before, if you’re so inclined, or toss it. Your trinket, your privilege.” He wants to sound aloof and steely, but, unforeseen and pitiful, his voice breaks, too weak to carry the burden of his heartache._

_Allison’s the only thing he’s ever desired. Not even the Victory, no. Just her._

_And he has to root her out of himself._

_(In his nightmares he dreams it is her dead eyes he closes in the grass. He weeps for her in the day.)_

***

 

After the training session is over, Erica leaves quickly, no longer waiting to see if Isaac will accompany her. It makes him restless and something else, somehow guilty, like he’s letting her down. But it does not surprise him.

One by one, the others clear the room until Isaac and Scott are the only ones left. He cannot honestly say that he hasn’t taken his time in order to catch Scott alone. He isn’t sure if it’s not for the same reason that Scott has lingered as well. The connection Isaac sometimes imagines between them feels all the more real in this moment, hanging in the air, oddly tangible.

Together they walk back to the main hall. Licking his lips, Isaac tries to find the right words to start a conversation and keeps falling short of anything substantial.

“Have you given any thought to what Derek spoke about?” Scott cuts through his anxiety.

It is so easy for him, to fill the silence with words while Isaac fumbles in his own foolishness, and it is instantly obvious too, that he’s the only one unnerved here, assigning meaning to actions that are trivial. He is at once both grateful and annoyed—eager to hide in the banalities of spoken words, yet it needles his pride that he’s being so absurd.

“Isaac?”

He raises his head, startled, and remembers the question.

The thing that will keep him true to what he is… There is one sure answer that comes to him quick, yet unwelcome. It is a certainty he will never forget nor let go off, but he doesn’t wish to speak of it. Those are not happy memories—not that Derek’s talk of rage has set optimism as a much needed criteria.

Still, looking at Scott’s easy unaffected smile, Isaac doesn’t want him to see the darkness of his past, wants to conceal it shamefully. How his mind is filled with memories of _clawing begging sweating freezing no no no_ he shakes his head jerkily and looks up at Scott’s face again, to steady himself against something solid.

“My father,” he tells the truth in spite of himself.

Scott nods, his face unchanging.

His expression is not kind, not placating, not pitying—is not anything Isaac would have feared, no, _loathed_ to see.

“Tell me,” he says, inviting anything, _every_ thing. _Tell me about him. Tell me about you. Tell me why he is your anchor._

“He was a good father,” Isaac speaks tonelessly, like what he’s saying does not concern him. “He loved me and loved my brother. He was in the Games too, you know.”

“I know,” Scott echoes. “Peter remembers him.”

Isaac nods. He was wondering about that.

“He just… got lost. He thought loving us was enough, and when it wasn’t, he just sorta… stopped. He was— _I_ was… a reminder. Of things he wanted to forget. I made him soft—and it made him angry; I made him guilty—and it made him angry, and then he would act on his anger, which would make him a little worse and even guiltier, and it was a vicious circle, and— He got lost,” he says again, taking a breath as his speech was increasing in speed. “I don’t want to. Get lost, that is. I don’t want to ever lose track of who I am, and while I remember him, I don’t think I will. I can’t be the man he became. And I couldn’t be vicious to other people, because—” he staggers and makes a grating sound with his throat, but keeps his voice dull and even, trying to sound matter-of-factly, “—well, because of the way he treated me.”

He gulps and clutches his fists tightly, because there is no easy way of speaking about it. Being unloved by a parent. It either falls flat or sounds weepy, or maybe Isaac just doesn’t know the right way to tell this, maybe he won’t ever know—because it crushes his heart, but it doesn’t make him weak, he cannot afford to be weak and he hates being considered as such.

He bangs his fists against the table. Then two hands come to rest on top of his knuckles, and he stills completely.

“It’s a good anchor,” Scott says softly. “An unyielding sort. Nothing will erode at that.”

Isaac dares to look up. Scott looks wistful, but his gaze holds no pity. He doesn’t treat him like a sob story, somehow understanding perfectly what Isaac never found the proper words to say, maybe the first person to ever understand it without him having to make stuttering excuses. There’s a sort of serene recognition in his face.

Isaac shifts his gaze to their touching hands stupidly. Scott’s hands are warm, always are. Isaac’s feel clammy, sweating despite how cold he feels. He shouldn’t be so abashed—tactile reassurance is Scott’s natural response to everything—but it is different this time.

Scott is always kind, but his kindness is distant and limited, except right now it’s not. His guard is down, and through the slips of his unreachable exterior another man is showing through, one who is perhaps too kind for his own good. Seemingly realizing it, Scott withdraws, stepping back and letting his arms fall alongside his body uneasily.

And for just a moment, Isaac starkly hates him for being so cruelly _reckless_ as to allow him the glimpse into that person that he now feels compelled to uncover. Except, he – has – no – time.

Scott elicits in him a sort of nervous greed. Isaac wants to absorb all of the kindness he has to offer, wants to claim it all—as if he’s not generous enough with it—and the scarier part is that Scott would probably let him.

Isaac wants it even though every time Scott’s being charitable he doesn’t know how to accept it, and it prickles at him uncomfortably. He wants it _selfishly_ , unable to imagine himself giving any of it back—because he doesn’t know how to care like that; doesn’t know that anyone would want it from him; because there’s no care left to give even if they did.

Isaac wishes his barriers would be thicker but they have always been paper-thin. He wishes that he were transparent, just for a moment, so that he would not need to explain anything to anyone, so they’d just _know_ , but that is a mark of cowardice and not helplessness—that he cannot put his fears and vulnerabilities and longings to words. No one in Panem really can afford transparency, anyway. Even Scott, for all the he’s kind and death-free and blameless, hides behind impregnable walls of needless facades that Isaac wishes to tear down.

His breathing quickening, he feels the wall of dark water rising behind him again like a monstrous creature. It is daunting and reminds him of what he fears the most. Of tight spaces and not enough air and bites of cold and _crawling on his knees picking up shattered glass his face hurts again it is a permanent situation these days feels worse than it looks that’s what he hopes for anyway and he wants to cry shouldn’t cry stops himself holds his breath it’ll just make him more angry and doesn’t this thought make him want to cry all the more_ it drowns him. The dark wall of water that holds nothing but pain. He loathes to imagine his hands being like his father’s: being cruel and bringing pain. It is nothing but shame. Filth. And it will eat away at him.

“Isaac,” Scott calls him softly, his voice breaking through the darkness like a thin ray of hope, only it’s solid—solid enough that Isaac can clutch at it and come back to the present. When he opens his eyes, he realizes he really has grabbed a hold of Scott, for support.

They are standing so close it’s almost an embrace, and Isaac is grasping at Scott’s wrists helplessly. “I can’t be like him…” he exhales hoarsely. “I don’t want to be. I cannot _hurt_ them.”

For better or for worse, but Isaac has known hurt. And the thought of inflicting pain, any kind of pain on others is sickening to him.

“Hey, hey, stop,” Scott says, rubbing his back, trying to pull him out of his panic. “Look, Isaac…” and he’s incapable to continue, desperately searching for something else to anchor him with. The placating meaninglessness slips out of him before he checks himself. “You know I killed no one in my year. Maybe you won’t have to either. Maybe you’ll get lucky like I did.”

It’s clear that he regrets the words as soon as they are out, although he cannot unsay them. Isaac wants to feel hopeful looking at his face, but Scott doesn’t meet his eyes. Isaac _knows_ his words were a lie, but he finds himself eager to cling to them all the same.

“Scott, I swear to God if you utter one more word with that stupid yap of yours, I’m gonna kick your ass!”

Neither of them have noticed Derek’s return to the hall, or for how long he’s been watching them. Now he descends upon them both furiously.

Startled, they pull apart, putting considerable distance between each other. Scott still refuses to meet Isaac’s eyes, like he knows he has done him a disservice. Isaac knows it too, perhaps, in a roundabout way of his own: he has seen another Scott today, right now, in this room, in this phrase. Scott has always been detached and preparing him and Erica for the harsh truths that tomorrow promises. The appeasing words he has spoken just now didn’t come from him as a mentor. He has spoken them like he too wishes to simply believe in them.

“Stop coddling him,” Derek proceeds to berate him. “You were lucky and you were stupid, and it was a one-time deal, and you’re probably one of the most inept victors in the history of the Games.” He snaps his head to look at Isaac. “In order to survive, you have to fight. You have to fight for _something_.” He points an accusing finger at Scott’s chest. “That’s what you’re supposed to be teaching him, Scott!”

He looks at Isaac, barely keeping his temper in check. “ _I_ fought, because I was betrayed, I fought because I was furious. And Scott fought **_too_**!—even if he wants you to believe he didn’t, even if he wants to believe it himself!—he wanted to survive for his girl. It’s just _chance_ that he didn’t kill anyone—were the situation slightly different, and he would have. _Could_ have. He didn’t go into the Games as a peacemaker. He went there as a _child_ , who hoped against all logic to be the exception. That he didn’t kill anyone proves nothing, because he didn’t emerge back the same child. He came back a man who had stared death in the face. And you gotta find something too, that will allow you to live with yourself after you’ve taken the life of another. You have to tell yourself that you’re important enough to survive.”

 

***

 

_His first year as a mentor he is a placating fool. It costs him dearly, still weighing heavily on his conscience. The tributes are Gavin and Sally—he is Scott’s age, sixteen, but she is twelve. It’s always hard when they’re this young._

_“They’re all people,” he tells her at some point, trying to cheer her up. “Nobody wants to murder, it is revolting to human nature to take a life of another. The Capitol pushes us to it, but we don’t have to comply. **You** don’t have to do it. I haven’t killed anyone, and maybe neither would you.”_

_He doesn’t understand how wrong his sanctimonious assumptions are._

_A week later on the second day of the Games he watches, horrorstruck, how she is cornered by the pack of the Careers, raising her arms pacifyingly. “You don’t have to do this,” she says, and her voice rings with a conviction **he** is guilty of instilling in her. “You don’t **have** to kill.”_

_Derek inhales sharply, his nails piercing the leather of the sofa, and Scott feels everything freeze and shatter inside of him, as he is choked by a desperate urgency to turn the clock back, make it not happen, do it differently._

_“Oh my God…” he exhales, feeling his hands shake, and his voice cracks._

_There is **nothing** he can do._

_The Career from District One throws his knife right into her eye socket. Scott feels bile burning the back of his throat and wants to run into the bathroom and puke his guts out, but his feet are leaden and he can’t bring himself to get up._

_Derek can, rising abruptly. He is shaking with anger, and he is not looking at Scott, like he’s afraid he might do something very regrettable if he does. At least that’s what Scott expects._

_“It’s your fault,” Derek states, angry and loud. Stabs him mercilessly with words and twists the knife further in. “You told her that stupid shit: that she doesn’t **have** to kill. You made her believe others might not want to either, made her think there are others as heart-on-the-sleeve as you are.” He turns and his face is a dark and terrifying mask. “Her death is your fault,” he repeats heavily. “It’s on you.”_

_He leaves then, and Scott gets up and stalks off on unbending legs to the nearest bathroom, where Stiles sits with him, rubbing his back, as he retches between wet and dry sobbing, wiping snot from his face. He has no words to shield himself, because Derek is right. It’s on him. It will forever be on him._

***

 

_Gavin perishes in the flood, when the earthquake breaks the dam. He’s one of the first victims the water claims. His drowning is horrible and chaotic and prolonged._

_The flood will persist for three more days, until only one survivor remains. District Four, naturally—they are all born swimming. To them in District Five it doesn’t matter anymore: their tributes are dead, and instead of the cameras following them specifically the footage they now receive is the general broadcast. There’s no one for them to watch over._

_Tonight, the TVs in the hall are muted for the first time. The flashes of the Games are still popping up in their peripheral vision, but they aren’t paying attention. For them, the Games have ended. And after the canon fire, Scott, Stiles, Derek and Peter gather in the living-room and get wasted._

_The room is eerily silent. No one talks or moves. Peter pours them wine, but no one touches it. Like no one wants to acknowledge what happened. But Scott feels obliged to._

_Coming up to the table and snatching his glass abruptly, he looks at them imploringly. “To Gavin and Sally,” he proclaims, raising the glass high, and at first it seems like the others won’t support him. Derek is wearing the look he gets when he thinks Scott is being overbearingly, undeservingly righteous. Stiles is looking between them worriedly._

_Then Derek snorts and grabs his glass, rising to his feet as well. He doesn’t answer Scott’s relieved smile, though. “To Chryssa,” he says, and Scott’s fingers weaken so that he almost drops the glass. He sways and stays on the spot, feeling like Derek has punched him. “To Tommy and Kara. To Fred and Grace. Bobbie and Angelina. Nathan and Elizabeth. Rick and Joss. To Sharon.”_

_He looks at Peter insistently, who seems displeased to be pulled into this absurd ritual but gets up also, picking up his glass gracefully. “To Camden and Lily. To Frank.” His eyes engage Derek’s hardly as he says, “Laura Hale.” (Somebody sucks in a breath. Must be Derek, or Scott himself. Maybe even Stiles. They all know it’s a fragile subject.)_

_There are eleven more names—five Games Peter has mentored before Derek and the one he has won._

_Derek looks at Scott pejoratively. “Don’t act so superior and noble, Scott. We remember them all.”_

_“We can never forget,” Peter adds, sipping the wine slowly, until the glass is dry._

_Scott feels like he’s gonna be sick again. Like he might cry. He drinks the glass empty, and sits down in shameful silence._

***

 

Isaac looks between them, confounded. “I don’t want to hurt people,” he states, shaking his head and taking a minute step towards Scott. He’s afraid of other people’s anger, it makes him lock up inside, so, wary of Derek’s wraith, he’s not exactly siding against him, except he kinda is.

Scott moves away from him. Isaac turns his head in alarm, but Scott is standing with his back half-turned to him. “He’s right,” he says softly. “I’m sorry, Isaac, he’s _right_ , I don’t know what I was thinking. I shouldn’t have said those things. It was stupid.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Isaac objects, although his conviction is draining rapidly. “I can be like you, I can avoid the fights and wait them out and—”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Scott cuts his nervous stammering off. “What happened to me was a fluke, but if I _did_ kill somebody, it wouldn’t change anything except the dubious title I’m glorified for. It’s not the _murder_ that’s scary—it’s coping with what happens after. It’s life.”

“Don’t say that,” Isaac pushes out through angrily gritted teeth. He can’t bear it, the ever so nice Scott McCall belittling death.

“Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m not saying it right,” Scott mutters. “But don’t you see? Why the Careers are so good? Because for them the goal justifies the means. It’s victory or death. They don’t fear the guilt of living with someone’s blood on your hands. But we _do_.” Isaac looks at Scott’s face, and he has never seen him so despondent. “Look at me, Isaac. Do you think I’m any better for not killing? It didn’t change one damned thing. I still feel like I’ve left twenty three corpses behind myself, and it’s all my fault. Like I could have saved—” his voice gets thick, and he stops abruptly, pursing his lips and turning away, breathing deeply. “No, doesn’t matter. What matters is it will still be unimaginably hard. Impossible to return from. Whether you kill one, or five, or zero.”

Isaac can feel his own face whitening, blood rushing away, he’s not sure where. Feels just like he’s being emptied out, bleeding outwards. “What’s the point then?” he asks. “Why are you telling me this? How is this supposed to get me through this, _any_ of this?” his voice rises, both angry and afraid.

“Because while you’re hoping you won’t become a murderer, you’re focusing on the wrong thing.” Isaac snorts derisively. “No, listen. However cynical you think I’m being, remember the _anchors_. The only thing that you must focus on is you. Keeping yourself alive, that’s the only important thing.”

They stand in ringing silence that sounds a little bit like a vacuum of epiphany. Isaac is not sure who is realizing what. He certainly feels as empty as before, and Scott’s face is flushed and upset. Derek looks at them wearily, weighing both of them against some inner expectations of his. Isaac suspects they both keep falling short. He’s not sure there is a person in this world that Derek isn’t disappointed in, including Derek himself.

“Come by upstairs later,” he tells Scott. “Something we need to discuss.” Scott nods, not taking his eyes from Isaac now. Derek nods to no one in particular and strides away.

“Why did you say it then? Before?” Isaac asks. “That maybe I could be like you.”

Scott shakes his head, regretting it. “Because I wanted to make you feel better. Just, stupid. Idiot,” he mutters under his breath.

“That did make me feel better. Before you brought up all the other stuff,” he points out, crossing his arms.

He wants to say he’s angry. Nervous. Dismayed. Upset. But truthfully he isn’t sure. He’s just _paralyzed_. Maybe it’s what fear does, numbs you to everything. Scott looks kindly upon him, but Isaac can no longer tell if the kindness is directed at him personally or is a general and detached kind that Scott wears out of habit.

“Feeling good won’t win you the Games,” he says. “As much as I want you to not be afraid, I cannot change what’s coming.”

“Why would I want to fight for it?” Isaac asks. “If surviving, as you’ve explained so nicely, _sucks_?”

“Because circumstances are impossible.” Scott rises to his feet, suddenly alarmed at the question. “You can’t _not_ be here, it’s your burden, but you cannot let it destroy everything you are. You cannot expedite your own demise!”

Isaac nods shakily, entirely unconvinced, and Scott grabs his hand suddenly and firmly, squeezing it till it hurts—and Isaac just stares up, unable to protest.

“Don’t you give up on me, Isaac,” Scott says. “Do you know why I seem mostly okay, why I fool people into believing I came out of it no worse for wear? It’s not because I haven’t killed. But because I had Derek and Stiles and others to bring me back up after I crashed and burnt. And we’re gonna be here for your fallout. So don’t you dare even think about not returning.”

Isaac stares at their hands numbly. Scott is clutching four of his fingers, but his thumb is free, and Isaac moves it around aimlessly, trying to put it to some use, he isn’t sure why. He ends up doing nothing but brushing it across the surface of Scott’s hand, but Scott is holding him so tightly he doesn’t seem to feel it.

He seems to be waiting for Isaac’s concession, so he gives a jittery nod. “Sure. No. I mean, I won’t. I won’t.” He isn’t particularly blessed with eloquence.

Scott lets go of his hand with a sigh, as abruptly as before, and throws his head back. “I’m an idiot,” he says again. “You should listen to Derek more—he continues to save me from my own stupidity. I thought that would change by now.” He half-sits half-leans on the armrest of the sofa.

Isaac hums vaguely, unsure what to say.

“When I met him, I thought I’d need to be like him in order to win,” Scott confesses out of the blue. “That didn’t really change even after I did. I imagined the days we’d be equal, when I’d be just like him: strong and confident and inspiring.” He chuckles at his own folly. “Can’t seem to get there.”

“I think,” Isaac says softly, looking at the points of his shoes, “you’re very much alike.”

“How do you figure?” Scott snorts, looking at him with amusement.

“Not the dark brooding aspect, obviously,” he adds quickly. “But you’re a mentor. You’re _wise_. Hardened. A survivor. You may not be as tough and strong as he is, but in your heart you’re exactly like him.”

Scott blinks at him, his face showing nothing, and Isaac wonders nervously if he’s not said something upsetting, if he should add that he meant it in a good way.

“I never thought of it like that,” Scott says softly. “Thank you.” He rises to his feet, and Isaac straightens as well, awkwardly agitated. “I better go, see what Derek wanted. He’s not exactly patient.”

Isaac snorts. “Sure. Yeah.”

At the door Scott looks back at him, strangely contemplative. “Till tomorrow,” he offers, and Isaac jerks his head in sort of a nod eagerly, echoing, “Tomorrow.”

 

***

 

Scott doesn’t realize how they’ve delayed until stepping onto the rooftop balcony. Evening has long since subsided into the saturated colors of the Capitol night. Artificial fragrances of local flora clash in the air, chafing him. He keeps forgetting how different the air here is—not clear, not polluted, just… different. Almost like it’s oily and a little hard to breathe. Or maybe it’s his own nerve-wrecked disposition.

“How did it go?” Derek asks sourly. “Gave any more devastating advice?”

“No,” Scott echoes, sounding offended even though Derek’s right. “I didn’t mean to,” he says, settling into the empty chair. “I just wanted to comfort him.”

“It’s not your job,” Derek rebukes him immediately.

“I know,” Scott returns, burying his face in his hands. “I don’t know what happened.”

Derek snorts into his bottle before taking a sip. “Oh, don’t you?” Scott gives him a look, both quizzical and _pissed_ at the same time. He hates it when Derek’s doing the I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself-Scott-McCall routine.

“You’re being an emotional fool, that’s what happened. You get too close and then you just want to ladle their trembling hearts in your palms. But you can’t,” he states brusquely.

“I know,” Scott repeats, his voice rising.

“Well, what good is it that you _‘know’_ if you keep making the same mistakes?” Derek scolds.

“Oh, don’t act so superior! It’s personal for us all.”

Derek says nothing, and for a minute or two Scott just broods, boiling in his own irrational irritation which he isn’t even certain why he feels. Then he adds uncertainly, “Isn’t it? I mean… we raise them like our own children, try to do our best… It’s—it’s—” he’s struggling to find a better word.

“It’s personal, yes,” Derek snaps, like he loathes to admit it, “what’s your point?”

“He’s different.” Derek turns to stare at him pointedly, his stare knife-like, and Scott looks away, pretending to be fascinated by the view of the Capitol. “You know I remember them all. Their quirks, their faces, even their voices sometimes. And when I say he’s different—it’s not that they weren’t, it’s—” he searches his mind for a word and gives up, chuckling at his own senselessness. “Ah, I don’t even know. Just a thought that keeps chasing me. He gets under my skin.”

Derek’s jaw is tense, like he’s angry, and Scott waits anxiously for his insight. “As I said, you’re a fool.” Scott snorts, thinking Derek is just going to mock him, but he’s not done. “You get too close and then you can’t let them go, you want it to be forever. Well, it won’t be.” Derek turns to him again, their gazes colliding, and Scott feels a sense of dread being lodged into his stomach. “He’s a nice boy, but he’s not like you, Scott. You cling to life like a leech and he doesn’t. It has occurred to him too often that death might be a relief, you’ve seen it yourself. And when this thought **_inevitably_ ** catches up with him out there, in the Arena—” Derek shakes his head, finally releasing Scott’s eyes and turning away.

“He won’t be returning, Scott. Better you prepare yourself for that.”


	5. Chapter 5

_You and I, we’re brothers,_ Derek tells him, and expects total reliance and sincerity from Scott while offering nothing in return. Which is how Scott learns about himself that he is incapable of blind trust. He cannot simply do what he’s told—even though he knows Derek is supposed to have his best interests at heart. He wants a reason.

Derek doesn’t give him one. He’s private and unforthcoming and half the time he seems to be preoccupied with something else, constantly angry and on edge. In the following years, as Scott will grow to know him, he will realize it has been a particularly trying year for Derek, and that normally Derek’s anger is nowhere near this vicious. It’s his uncle that has him so wrapped up.

Scott doesn’t know their story yet. Years into the future, with Peter reconciled with them, Scott still won’t be sure if he knows the whole of it.

Peter chances upon him one night in the living room. Scott is sitting by the window, hugging his knees and looking out onto the city through the glass. He isn’t expecting company. Peter’s wearing something that looks like a cotton dressing gown. It makes him look a little ridiculous, wiry legs sticking out from under the hem that reaches down to his knees. Scott startles at the disheveled sight of him.

When Peter Hale wins the Games at the age of eighteen, Scott is one year old. He is seven when Peter suddenly stops mentoring—not that the man’s sudden absence is a fact that registers with his young self any better: he has vague recollections of his mother discussing it with other adults but nothing that particularly stands out. At seven he doesn’t wonder why there are now only two mentors where there once were three. In two years’ time it will be Derek’s turn to win, and for five years he will be mentoring side by side with Joan, and that’s how Scott remembers the face of their District—with sporadic appearances from Marcus, drunk and useless.

By the time Scott meets Peter Hale in real life, he doesn’t remember him at all.

“Who are you?” Scott asks, straightening from his slouched position.

“Who are _you_?” Peter parries, coming closer and sitting on the couch.

“I’m a tribute,” Scott replies, nonplussed, and adds after a careful pause. “I’m Scott.”

“And I live here,” Peter replies pleasantly. Scott looks at him dubiously, and Peter’s smile spreads a little wider. “Cross my heart,” he adds. “I am Peter Hale.”

The family name finally jogs Scott’s memory. He might not remember the face, might not remember Peter actually being anywhere in the vicinity of the Games for years, but it’s not like they don’t teach them the names of the victors at school back at home—the District’s pride and joy.

“You’ve won the 55th Games,” Scott rises to his feet and walks over to sit himself across Peter.

“So I have,” Peter agrees.

Scott wants to ask, _Will you be coaching me with Derek?_ Except the man doesn’t look like he could be acting in _any_ instructive capacity.

“Why are you dressed like that?” he asks finally.

“Why are _you_ dressed like that?” Peter parrots once again. Scott suspects he will not get a straight answer out of the man unless he wants to grace him with one.

“Derek’s mentoring me,” he offers, not sure what reaction he’s hoping for.

“Good for you,” Peter replies. If that’s supposed to be sarcasm Scott isn’t sure. He’d certainly be sarcastic in Peter’s shoes because so far Derek hasn’t been doing a very good job.

“I was kind of hoping _you’d_ be helping me too, since you two are family.”

Peter doesn’t seem to be looking at him, rocking on the couch, palms flattened by both sides of him, fingers piercing into the leather. “You might have noticed,” he replies without looking at Scott, “that I have not appeared as a mentor for quite some time now. And my last time being one was a particularly nasty cock-up, so you wouldn’t want my fucking advice anyway.”

Scott startles at Peter’s language, especially delivered in that sweet calm voice of his. The tips of his ears blush. “I’d welcome any advice at this point, frankly. I have no idea where Derek is half the time.”

“Probably at home,” Peter says carelessly.

“At home… at District Five?” Scott knows that cannot be and feels stupid even asking.

Peter makes eye contact with him again. “Don’t be absurd. He has a home here, he’s a mentor. Our home at Five has burnt down. Only I live there now.”

Scott isn’t sure how _that_ statement isn’t absurd as opposed to his, but chooses not to argue. “He lives _here?_ ” he asks instead, looking outside at the colorful lights of the Capitol. Derek Hale, who wears black that makes the locals stare at him, disturbed and uncomfortable. Who doesn’t partake of their fancy foods outside of the plainest meat and vegetables and water. Who has an aversion to half the things decorating these buildings, looking disgusted even at the prospect of touching them. Who appears comfortable only when punching things or coming at Scott with his exceptionally disturbing type of physical training. Reconciling this image with the idea of Derek _living_ here takes Scott a while.

“He lives here, mentors here…” Peter continues in a musing tone. “The Capitol owns him.”

“Wait.” Scott frowns, confused. “Am I supposed to settle down here too if I win?”

Peter shrugs. “It’s an option. To the victor belong the spoils. You get to enjoy all of the praise, all of the money, all of the… _everything_ for a year. And the Capitol will be eager to love you and welcome you to its bosom if you so decided. They did with Derek.”

“I kinda got the impression Derek hates the Capitol,” Scott says softly.

Peter laughs, but it sounds theatrical and insincere. “He does. He just hates me more, that’s all.”

Scott remembers that Peter lives in a burnt-down house, like a crazy person.

“Maybe he doesn’t hate you. Maybe he hates living with the memories of death.”

Peter looks amused and inclines his head to study him. “There’s that, too,” he agrees mildly.

“Is that why he won’t actually settle down?” Scott attempts to figure Derek out. “He hates the girls here too?”

Life in the Districts is simple. Even in Five, for all the power plants feeding it, the life is almost agrarian. And every year Scott observes young people only slighter older than himself suddenly pairing up around him. The workings of it are almost mystical to Scott, and he doesn’t know how they find people to court and to start a future with. But that it should one day happen to him too is an undeniable certainty, almost like a rule—that they are all expected to marry and start families of their own.

Yet Peter laughs for real this time, as if Scott said something intentionally funny. It makes him flush embarrassedly, a weak smile curving his lips in confusion.

“Ah, Scott,” Peter drawls, smiling down at him avuncularly. “I miss such youthful blunder.” He looks outside the window pensively. “Do you know that they say our family is cursed?”

“Yeah?” Scott isn’t sure what it has got to do with anything.

“Such superstitious nonsense, really. The only curse Panem has is—” Peter’s lips curl up distastefully, and for the first time his eyes aren’t languid—they are keen, and bright, and very very sane. But Peter falls silent and doesn’t volunteer what he thinks the real curse of their nation is.

“Anyway, Derek believes in the curse, you see,” he says instead. The silence following that sentence should be grave, but Peter continues with merriment, “He’s had some troubles with women, too, mind you, I mean you’ve met my nephew— _disastrous_ social skills!” Scott gives a weak nervous chuckle, because yeah, seriously, Derek can be pretty horrible. Hard to imagine him being anything but. “But the truth is, after what happened to him, and to Laura, and myself—he just doesn’t want to bring a child into the world where for seven years he or she would be a candidate for Reaping. Not to mention the actual Games.” Peter looks at Scott with profound cynicism. “Women want litter, Scott, as a general rule. So Derek avoids socializing with them.”

“Peter.”

The sound of Derek’s voice is like a crack of a whip, like a thunder crash. Scott straightens up so abruptly his back strains, and looks around.

Derek’s face is dark and dangerous. “What are you doing **_out_**?” He looks like he wants to say something else, a thousand other things, but he is only able to repeat himself. “Why are you out?”

“Ah, and here is my dear nephew,” Peter says, not deeming it worthy to turn around and face him. He keeps smiling at Scott out of the corner of his mouth. “I’d love to say ‘charming’ but, alas, that’s only my side of the gene pool.”

“Shut up!” Derek is swiftly upon him, grabbing him by the shoulder. “You are not allowed to leave! What was he saying to you?” It takes Scott a few seconds to realize Derek’s addressing him now. He tears his eyes away from Derek’s fingers twisting into Peter’s flesh.

“Ah—nothing!—I dunno—just—stuff?—about Capitol—about you—”

“Don’t believe a word of it,” Derek snaps, cutting him off. “He’s sick. And he’s a bastard. Just… wait here.” He lifts Peter by the elbow—the man offers no struggle—and drags him outside. It’s only in this context that Scott finally realizes what Peter Hale’s attire reminded him of. It’s a patient-gown.

Derek returns shortly, and he is royally, thoroughly pissed. Scott stops fiddling his thumbs and sighs, thinking it is about to be one very long and not entirely painless conversation.

“Don’t ever talk to him again,” Derek says instead of greeting, like it’s somehow Scott’s fault. “He wasn’t supposed to be out.”

_Out of where,_ Scott wonders, but doesn’t dare ask. “What is wrong between you two?” he asks instead. “He seemed kind of nice.”

“Did he?” Derek snaps so hard he almost spits. “Well, I’m glad you’re such chums.”

“I just want to understand—” He isn’t sure what he means to be at the end of this sentence. _You_ , perhaps, because more than anything Scott wishes to be Derek’s friend, to be at the end of a reaction that is different from his constant admonishings. To be liked—he’s really not that hard to be on good terms with. To like Derek back by gaining some understanding, because right now he’s hard pressed to find a single quality to appreciate in his mentor. Rationally admire? Sure. He’s a winner, after all, he’s tough and impressive. But he is not a likable person, and he is not easy to get to know.

“You’re just a child!” Derek exclaims, and Scott scowls and tenses.

Staring at the invisible spot somewhere behind Derek’s shoulder, he asks the question that is really bothering him. “Derek. Do you think I’m gonna die?”

Derek stiffens and stares at him.

“Yes.”

Something painful coils in Scott’s chest, a hurt tangled in with fear, making him feel clammy all over. “Huh,” he forces out, trying to act nonchalant, but his throat is tight as if noosed. “Thanks.” A pause. “You know, you really suck at this.”

Derek sighs, heavily. “You’re so hard to deal with,” he complains unhappily, and that is the first Scott hears of it, ever, because he is generally complemented for his niceness. “You need to stop contradicting me so much. I will teach you everything I know. Everything I can. I can teach you to survive out there—you just got to want it badly enough.”

“Oh, I want it!” Scott exclaims, somewhat peeved. “You’re not even here! You’re… I dunno, with your uncle, I guess? Playing caretaker?”

“He needs my help,” Derek says gravely.

“I need your help too!” Scott says helplessly. “I mean, unless you think you’re wasting your time. That’s why I asked. If you think I’m gonna die either way, I guess it would explain why you’re not even here to mentor—”

“Stop,” Derek interrupts him in a sharp tone. “Stop whining. Stop complaining. Stop looking for all the reasons why you’d rather have a different mentor who would advise you differently, and who would coddle you into an early grave. I will teach you some hard truths. And an even harder training. But I’ll make a fighter out of you yet.”

Scott wonders briefly if Derek means it, or if his uncle’s illness will occupy his mind still. “What is wrong with Peter?” he asks.

Derek inhales sharply, quickly losing patience. “You don’t get how this works, Scott. There is only you, me and the Games from now on. You don’t worry about anything else, or anyone else. Tomorrow, you’ll go to the Training Center and watch as much as you can. Everything theoretical you think you need to learn, you _learn_. The fighting—don’t even bother. I’ll take care of that.”

Scott isn’t sure if he finds this conversation reassuring or not as Derek leaves him. But he feels like he’s on the right path to at least some mild form of communication, so there’s that. He wonders if it will be worth trying to sneak Stiles into the Training Center with him tomorrow…

 

***

 

“You’re not to see her again, Scott,” Derek orders with a chilling finality.

Him finding out that Allison Argent is the distraction keeping Scott from focusing on the training doesn’t go over well with Derek at all.

“Look, I know I’ve only known her for a short while, but it’s like I really **_do_** know her already,” he promises passionately. “All of her.”

Derek’s face screws up. “Do I look like I care about your puppy love or how real it is, Scott? She’s drawing your attention away, and I won’t have it. And **_she_** —she’s not yours to have.”

Scott wants to tell him that he’s wrong, that they’re in **_love_** —something Derek cannot possibly fathom—and that they **_will_** belong to each other completely. But that’s not true, of course. Allison cannot be his completely, just like Derek says. She belongs to her family. To her District. To her duty as a Career. To her future as a Peacekeeper. And he belongs to the Capitol. To the Arena. To the Hunger Games.

To accentuate his point Derek grabs at his arm, and Scott pinches his lips in an attempt not to wince: Derek’s fingers dig into his flesh like claws. “You have to forget about her, Scott. She cannot follow you to where you’re going, not even in your thoughts, and you cannot follow her wherever it is she’s going, regardless. Your paths don’t coincide and you shouldn’t waste any efforts thinking about what you cannot have.”

A protest hovers on Scott’s lips but something in Derek’s eyes scares him into silence.

“But what about after the Games?” he asks very quietly, rubbing his arm after Derek lets go off him. “Can’t I wish for having her after?”

Derek looks at him like he thinks that if that’s his reason to win, maybe they both should just give up right now.

“She will never make you happy, Scott,” he tells him, and his tone of voice is almost sympathetic. “She can’t. She can only break your heart.”

Derek has some strong opinions on the topic of ‘love’, and Scott’s love for Allison in particular, but it’s not until much later, when he returns from the Games, that he learns why.

 

***

 

It starts out as a love story that sounds almost perfect: a chance meeting by the fences that separate their Districts, a friendship that breaks almost every rule and a love affair that breaks them all. You aren’t supposed to have contact with the other Districts; some still disobey, and sometimes the Peacekeepers will turn a blind eye to it.

They are those lucky ones. She’s from District Two, and among the Peacekeepers is her brother. They have enough money to buy his way in were he to choose to cross the fences, and Derek is stupid and reckless and in love.

He’s fifteen when Laura volunteers. The day after she leaves for the Capitol he meets Kate by the fences and makes her promise not to enter the Games if her family means for her to. (The Reaping isn’t done in her District yet.) She looks dubious but agrees, and someone else goes in her stead.

He’s sixteen. The whole time the Games remind him of Laura. Kate’s seventeen and she still doesn’t go. He sometimes wonders if things would have been different if she **_had_** gone that year. Gone and won.

He’s seventeen when his name is called out. No one volunteers in his stead, and why would they?

Kate knows he is chosen. He waits by the fences in vain; she doesn’t come to meet him.

When the Reapings are held in her District, she volunteers to go.

Later, as they meet again in the Capitol, they argue and kiss and argue some more, and she swears she couldn’t defy her father who _wanted_ their name clamored victoriously. It is her last year, so Derek believes her. He makes her promise again that they won’t fight each other until the very end. Makes her promise him to survive as long as possible. Her eyes are clear and lazy-shy from under heavy lids as she smiles at him and says, _I promise_. He kisses the words from her lips and she laughs, and he thinks, for the last time, that she’s beautiful. And that he isn’t likely to succeed against this year’s Careers, but he will try—just to keep her safe—and he is prepared to fall on his sword afterwards to ensure she’s victorious.

He goes onto the Arena with her love burning brightly in his heart. She tracks him down on the second night and tries to kill him in his sleep. He never gets the chance to ask her _why_ before his own dagger finds her heart and she cannot tell him anything anymore. Maybe it’s for the best, or the whole world would have known what she was to him, and the whole world would pity him. Instead, to their ignorant eyes he appears nothing but surprised—and maybe a little foolish and a little shaken. It is to be expected: she is his first kill and they must think her still incredibly beautiful. He takes one look at her pale tranquil face, staring earnestly into the skies, and finds that she looks monstrous.

In the years to come, he still wonders sometimes if it would have been different if she had gone when she was seventeen— _gone and won_. It takes Scott McCall winning the Games, and his naïve touching friendship (as well as his blundering yet devoted friend’s inescapable presence) becoming a persistent part of his life for Derek to finally stop asking himself that question, and to look to the future instead of dwelling in the past.

 

***

 

_“I sometimes hate him, I do,” Derek tells him. “But at least I don’t have to lie to him. The pain in us is mutual, and I don’t have to cover it up.”_

Scott will not learn what has transpired between Derek and Peter this year. Nor can he say for sure if he will learn the whole truth at all. Most days they don’t even talk about it, and there’s a shaky truce between them, wherein Derek finds Peter mostly distasteful, and Peter continues to confuse real life with his delusions. When they fight, Derek blames him for Laura’s death—Scott has heard him scream these accusations to his uncle’s face, and Peter accepts them without arguments. The truth behind _that_ story Scott doesn’t know even now.

What he knows is it is another scar Peter bears. Another, because no one leaves the Games untouched. Another, because later Scott finds out he had many—fifty percent of his body was covered in them. Completely scorched. He doesn’t look it now, all polished and mended by the Capitol, but Peter still feels them hurt, and sees them more often than not when staring at his reflection. His room has no mirrors. And in the right light, because regenerating such a large portion of skin is not an easy job to perform even in the Capitol, Scott sometimes sees ghostly traces of his scars too.

They say Peter got burnt for the first time in the Games. They say the fire at the Hale house was an accident. The proper pronoun would rather be, _The Capitol says_. It is not the truth, of course it isn’t. Peter returns home battered but healthy. He returns a victor and a miracle story, but in the Capitol’s eyes he returns a liar and a cheat.

Inside every tribute there is a tracker. (“He was so burnt we missed the signs,” they will be saying later.) There is, indeed, a fire in the Areba. Peter uses it as a trickster that he is: by arranging a blind spot between the cameras and cutting the tracker out of himself, making a mutt swallow it and letting it burn up. The devices pick up the heat signature, the spike of the temperature, everything that signals a man’s death—while Peter buries himself into the ground, like a dead man.

For three days the tributes are killing each other off, and for three days Peter lies in the ground without food or water and listens to the cannons. He knows when there are only two left. The viewers of the Capitol are all abuzz when he emerges, salivating at the impending plot twist. (The Head Gamemaker will later catch hell for that. Unlike the lucky tribute, he will not be emerging from it so alive.)

The two remaining tributes are a Career from District One and a girl, and she’s District Five as well. His fellow tribute. The visitors are expecting a retribution story. They hold their collective breath when it is the girl who emerges victorious from what she expects to be her final fight. She is waiting for the voice to announce her victory. She does not expect him to pounce at her from behind.

They are both exhausted—her from fighting the Career, and him from hunger and being close to dehydration—but he is more rested, and less wounded, and he is strong. She has been close to giving up long before he came around, and he remained driven. With a snap of her neck his victory is ensured. The Capitol, however, is not forgiving of his trickery.

They ensure that no one repeats his brazen deception. Back at the District, a month or two after his return—and he had a fiancée waiting for him, he had a sister and a brother, and they had families—his house is put to fire by the Peacekeepers. That day their title is a particularly cruel and unfunny irony. They stand and watch over to ensure every family member dies. Even more ironic is that Peter Hale is the only one of the people trapped inside who survives after all. The Capitol doesn’t try the second time.

He is never the same after that regardless.

“Fear. Guilt. Pain. Remorse. He doesn’t feel those things, he can’t!” Derek explains to Scott one evening desperately. “You think his smiles are pleasant?” he chuckles bitterly. “Well, they _are_. He can fake it all _perfectly_ —but it’s only here,” he point to his own face. “Only on the surface, nowhere else!”

“Why?” Scott asks softly. “Why is he like that?”

“Because of the Capitol,” Derek’s voice is poisonous. “Because he has won the Games.”

“Will he—I mean, _can_ he—get better?”

Derek merely snorts as a sign of his high doubts.

Scott will learn afterwards, as he is getting to know both of them, that the reason Derek was so worked up during the time that he was supposed to be single-mindedly mentoring Scott, was because Peter deteriorated and tried to burn down what is left of his house with himself in it. Derek had him committed, and the kind Capitol doctors with their whacked sense of what is right and sensible allowed him to get addicted to Morphling. Derek had to have him supervised to wean him off of it. The first time Scott speaks to him, Peter is half-sedated and vividly tripping.

He’s fine now. He still smiles like he’s insane and arrogant and doesn’t care, but Scott knows the ingrained shame and grief that is hidden deep within him. On the inside, all of him is scarred. It’s eighteen years since his victory, but life of the Hunger Games victor is always about the Games. They never let you go. It’s the first lesson Peter really teaches Scott: if you survive, it will hurt even worse.

 

***

 

Of all the Career Districts, number Two is the one to watch out for.

District One is privileged, pampered. They get away with things because they’re entitled, but they are also lazy and more often than not they aren’t actually smart. District Four is freedom-loving and spirited, and as opponents they are dangerous and strong, raised by the storms and the sea. But they are all good people with fierce and fiery hearts who hate the Capitol. As a mentor, Scott will make some friends there.

But District Two is the Capitol’s “Red Right Hand”. Their servants, their soldiers. The District that breeds Peacekeepers, but whatever they are brought up believing it is definitely not peace. Scott has seen how the Games breed fear and desperation, and how fear makes people do terrible, cowardly things. But District Two can take a human, a normal person that you knew and smiled with, and then purge the soul out of them in a way Scott has never believed were possible.

Then he learnt what happened with Kate Argent. And now he has lost Allison to a frightfully similar road.

While their own tributes are alive, Scott cannot _not_ watch the Games. But when both of their tributes are slain he stops. He spends most of the days locked up in his quarters, refusing to speak to either Stiles or Derek, and doesn’t even join them for meals preferring the avox to bring the food to his room. He isn’t sure if he’s more afraid to see her fail, or to see her succeed. She is not like him, she doesn’t nurture her integrity, doesn’t even try. She is a Career. She doesn’t run from the tributes, she hunts them.

When she returns a victor, Scott cannot watch her triumphant interviews either. He thinks he should talk to her but cannot find in himself the courage to do so. He rides home to District Five without seeing her, and spends the months there alternating between trying to talk himself into speaking to her when the next season begins, and forgetting her altogether.

Derek’s sympathy has been short-lived, and Stiles is startlingly unhelpful in the matter, siding with Derek on this one. She has broken his heart, that might be so, but it doesn’t mean she cannot do it for the second time if he lets her. And he’s stupid and soft enough to give her that chance.

Back at the Capitol Derek and Stiles do their joint best to keep his mind occupied elsewhere until his urge for emotional self-harm passes. Then Lydia comes, and she is still her friend, somehow, through all of it, so she asks, “Are you gonna see Allison? Might be good for the both of you.”

Derek, naturally, implodes, and goes into a fit of inner brooding. Stiles and Lydia start bickering, and Scott disappears unnoticed and heads for his bedroom. He stops short in front of his door because there, on the misted-over glass, someone has written a question with a thin finger.

_Midnight, the usual spot?_ the message asks. She must have bribed an avox into leaving it, but it almost looks like it could be hers.

Scott stares at it for a long moment and cannot breathe. It is a spectral reminder, like an imprint from a ghost, left impossibly by someone he has buried. He doesn’t want to come because he fears she still has the power to break him even further. He wants to come and make sure she’s okay and still his Allison. Even though he knows very well she is not.

Being there, in the Arena, Scott has spent every day believing that he’ll die there, fighting. Derek would have been furious if he knew and Scott never admits it to him. But there was a small comfort in that, in not fearing the Capitol any more, nor old age, nor sickness, and just knowing that yeah, this is it. The idea of it wasn’t a strong enough to make him want to lie down and give up, but it wasn’t a _terrible_ thought to have. It just was.

He had trouble shaking it afterwards, when the world offered him a future to be had. Love Allison. Raise kids. Do right by your tributes. Scott was naïve enough to believe in the complacent promise of it all, to let himself sag against the softness of such a possibility. After all, he was not expecting to outlive twenty-three other souls. He believed he earned a little rest.

A second chance at life, he might have also said if he were more pretentious. Being fifteen he had no idea what it truly meant. He kept waking up in the middle of the night, and his mind would still be trapped in the Arena—because he did not expect to be walking out of it. He tried to explain it to Allison, stammering, blubbering, and he was never very good with words, but she’s from a family of Peacekeepers and Careers so she seemed to get it even when he couldn’t find the words.

“I know,” she’d tell him, her soft breath hanging above his lips before she’d kiss him. It was better to fall asleep with her, never feeling like he was alone in the Arena again, but always knowing he was in her arms, secure.

He wonders now if she truly did know. He wonders how much deeper her _‘I know’_ has gotten since then. He doesn’t doubt that she knows **_now_**.

On the rooftop she looks at once untouchable and familiar. She is dressed in the evening wear she probably wore to the Tribute parade. It makes her look like regal. She has always been a queen to him.

He steps out on the rooftop and joins her in silence. It is not natural any more, not companionable, everything is stiff and strange. She startles when he reaches her, leaning against the balcony rails without saying anything, and stares at him for a few seconds. He stares in front of him stubbornly and does not look back.

“Hey. Scott…” she breaks the silence tentatively.

He nods and turns his head a little, sort of facing her, but sort of facing outward of her still, not meeting her eyes.

“How have you been?”

His brows furrow in confusion. He is taut as a string and has no strength for small talk. She has called him here for _something_.

“Was it worth it?” he asks, and doesn’t meant for it to sound as accusing as it does.

She blanches. “No,” she replies, frank but offended.

“Would you have—”

“No.”

He raises his eyes at her, finally, and finishes stubbornly, “—changed your mind then? If you knew?”

“No,” she says, meeting his eyes headstrong. “It wasn’t worth it, but it is also a part of me now that roughed me up and made me a better person, I think.”

He stares at her incredulously. “Which part? Where you shot and killed three tributes?”

“Not everyone can be like you, Scott.”

“You were a Career there, Allison. You _hunted_ them.”

She turns away unhappily, because yes, she did. But in her own eyes it was justified.

“I’m sorry,” he offers after a moment of tense silence. “You didn’t call me here to fight.”

“No, I—I don’t know, I just—missed you, and I thought. Maybe it’s not too late to salvage something out of what we were. To repair a tiny bit. A friendship?”

Scott looks at her, looks at her lips and her porcelain skin, and her large amazing eyes that are so expressive and always so telling of anything she might wish to hide, or at least they were for him. Still are, he thinks, seeing the tentative sad hope in them. He sees all these things and finds, suddenly, that yes, it is not a trap after all, not to him, he is _impervious_. And he can try to be her friend, because he is in danger of having his heart broken no longer.

 

***

 

“You’ve been harsh on Peter today,” Scott says carefully, and earns Derek’s evil eye.

“He deserved it,” comes the rough response.

It is almost the eve of the 71st Hunger Games, and Scott’s second year as the mentor. Peter has been an undesirable presence among them the previous year, an aggravating thorn wedged in between. Scott fails to understand the man, doesn’t know when he is being lucid and when battling inner demons, and what is the point of his often cruel and disrupting remarks. If Derek understands his uncle any better, it doesn’t make him more welcoming towards the man.

Now Peter Hale is trying to be not just a specter, but to impart some of his mentorly wisdom. Derek doesn’t take to the idea at all.

“He’s ill-suited to be a Mentor,” Derek adds in a sharp tone. “The Games addle him too much.”

Scott gives him a skeptic glance. “Derek, have you met us? Neither of us is well-suited to be a Mentor either. In fact, we’re the last people I’d choose.”

“Being ruined is not the same as purposefully sabotaging your own tribute, your _niece_ , letting her die in the Arena for whatever twisted reasoning guided him.”

“He’s better now,” Scott tells him kindly and somewhat magnanimously, he supposes.

“He will never be better, Scott,” Derek sneers.

Scott thinks of Peter, of how he was walking on eggshells around Derek today, after the latter’s outburst.

“But he’s alive, Derek. You’re both alive. So don’t you think it’s high time you forgave him?” he states calmly, almost like a non-question.

Derek’s eyes are momentarily furious as he snaps to look at him because how dare anyone insert themselves into his private business? Then he remembers it’s Scott and just sighs in resignation, leaning back and staring at the sky.

“I _have,_ Scott, a long time ago,” he admits grudgingly. “I can never forget, nor let go, but I do forgive him. You’re exactly right, we’re both alive. So I can’t hate him. He’s the only family I’ve got left.”

Scott mulls it over silently, remembering the guilty looks Peter keeps throwing Derek on occasions still, and then he says quietly, “Then, don’t you think you should tell him that? ‘Cause I don’t think he knows it.”

 

***

 

Scott exits the simulation and finds Stiles not hovering anywhere around. Not yet concerned, Scott sets it for another go, and it is only when ten minutes later he steps out and Stiles is still nowhere to be seen that Scott begins to worry. He walks around the whole Training Center, calling his friend in a hushed voice and getting curious and annoyed glances in response before he spots him, by accident, when he raises his eyes to where the engineering section is. Stiles somehow slunk in there, and is hovering behind the back of that girl he decided to have a crush on—Lydia.

Scott feels his heart literally plummet so fast that he is momentarily dizzy.

Staggering, he rushes up the stairs, not even caring that the area is strictly speaking off limits. He stops several feet away and hisses, _“Stiles!”_

His friend throws him an impatient stare and shakes his head, clearly broadcasting a _Not now, Scott._

“Get back here!” Scott hisses louder, and Stiles waves at him and turns back to study Lydia’s work, pretending to ignore Scott.

“Will you stop hovering?” Lydia waves her hand, not even registering who is breaking her concentration. Stiles slides away but can’t help himself and Scott watches, horrified, mimicking violently at Stiles to stop it immediately, as his friend returns into Lydia’s personal space again, looking over her shoulder at her work.

“Are you actually planning on changing the level of terrain under the tribute’s feet? Like, seriously, raising it to different levels? Why?” he blurts out.

Lydia’s hands halt over the keyboard, and she looks at him, her face growing furious. “Oh my god, I told you to stop bothering me. You’re not even supposed to be here. That’s it, I’m calling security.” Lydia raises her hand.

Scott pales and actively considers falling onto his knees and begging her to let them go one last time if he promises that he will keep Stiles away from her and on a tight leash.

“You should raise that value,” Stiles says, not tearing his eyes away from the screen and not even noticing the danger.

“Excuse me?” she turns to stare at him, and is equally taken aback by him patently ignoring her threat. He is studying the display with keen interest. “Are you seriously giving me advice?”

“Sorry,” Stiles shrugs, pointing to something at the screen, then stepping back, hands shoved into pockets. “Just, looked wrong to me.”

Lydia is looking at the screen with a hard expression when the Peacekeepers finally reach them. “You hailed, ma’am?” And it would have been hilarious that two grown men are calling a teenage girl ‘ma’am’ if Scott weren’t painfully aware of how much power she wields.

Stiles finally realizes the mess he’s in and startles, looking between Lydia and the Peacekeepers with a trapped expression. She raises her hand dismissively. “Carry on.”

“Were the tributes bothering you?” one of them insists, studying Scott suspiciously. Scott tries to move his heavy tongue but it feels stuck to the palate. Or maybe the back of his throat.

“I said, carry on,” Lydia repeats with a little steel to her voice. “I was mistaken.” The two men grunt and retreat, but Lydia isn’t even talking to them at this point. She is looking at Stiles. “So, District Five,” she says, seizing him up.

“Stiles,” he supplies helpfully, but she snorts like he’s being ridiculous in thinking she will ever bother learning his name.

“How can you understand the code?”

Stiles looks embarrassed. “I don’t know. It’s just a—pattern,” he flails his hands a little. “And I just can.”

Lydia snorts, bemused.

“What?”

She shakes her head. “Most engineers have to train _arduously_ to maneuver this kind of programming. To be able to read it and control it. There are some hard trainings to go through.”

“Oh,” Stiles’s face elongates, wondering if his intuitiveness will get him into trouble. And, more importantly, if his easiness with understanding it offends Lydia. “I’m sorry—”

“No,” she cuts him off. “It’s just. People are always so offended when I say the exact same thing.” Stiles’s expression clears. “I just get it,” she enunciates thoughtfully and studies him, her expression amicable. “Although I do admit I finally understand how infuriatingly baffling it sounds when you don’t expect it.”

She points to an empty sit that Stiles promptly drags up to her screen, and soon they are both involved in a conversation which has escaped Scott several sciences ago. He is thinking of retreating, leaving Stiles to it since he seems to be out of harm’s way when—

“Lydia, is this guy bothering you again?”

As he’s turning to leave he bumps into Jackson. He doesn’t even notice Scott, pushing him aside and heading for his girlfriend.

“No, _you’re_ bothering us,” she says impatiently, not raising her eyes from the screen. “We’re working.” Stiles doesn’t maintain the same nonchalance and backs away.

“He doesn’t work here!” Jackson says accusingly, pointing at him, and he’s a little too loud, and Scott’s heart flies up into his throat again as several people look at them curiously, if not a little suspiciously.

“He does if I say so,” Lydia says slowly, finally turning to face him, wearing an expression that is both polite and scary. “And I _say so_.”

Everyone promptly stops looking at them, and Scott wonders just _how_ important her family must be. Jackson flushes angrily, not at all appreciating being taken down a peg. Stiles however couldn’t look more smitten.

Jackson turns away furiously and rushes down the steps. “What are you looking at?” he glowers at a boy who had the misfortune to be the first in his way. He doesn’t expect an answer, doesn’t even care, just grabs the boy by the shoulder and punches him hard in the face, once, twice—

“Hey!” The Peacekeepers, the same two who were so eager to drag Stiles away by force because he looked like no one important, do not even rush to stop a Career from District One. They just shout at him, and when Jackson looks up, they meaningfully shake their heads. Scott’s stomach churns at the sight of it.

Jackson lets go off the boy easily, raising both hands up and letting him drop at his feet and walks away.

Scott hurries to the boy’s side because no one else seems in a hurry to. He turns him onto his back, and the boy flinches and moans, jerks away expecting more pain. “Hey, it’s all right,” Scott promises, taking his hands away and letting the boy get his bearing. It’s the tribute from District Six, the one whose hands are constantly shaking.

“Can you get up?”

He nods, but Scott still offers him his shoulder for support. He leads him to the bubbler fountain in the middle of the room and helps wash his face. The boy’s got a nasty nosebleed.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Scott tells him, trying to appear reassuring. The boy is shaking like he always does, his shudders becoming violent. He clutches at the inner crease of his elbow and squeezes it, panting, even though it is nowhere near where Jackson has grabbed him. His cheeks are gaunt, and his hair is damp and sticking to his pale forehead.

“Hey, you look like you’re a smart guy,” Scott says, even though he has no idea. He can only hope this boy has something to help him in the Games, and it is certainly not gonna be brawn. “Smart guys can make guys like Jackson eat out of their hands when they put their minds to it. Okay?”

The boy doesn’t seem encouraged.

Scott sighs. “What’s your name, anyway?” he mutters, not really expecting an answer—the boy doesn’t look like he’s much for small talk.

But the tribute finally glances up at him, his eyes unnerving Scott for a minute with how hollow and detached they look at him.

“Matt.”

 

***

 

Scott wakes, cold, troubled by something more than a sudden draft or a malfunction in the air ducts. Cold with a knowledge of sudden danger, with a sense of terror that squeezes his heart till he almost whimpers without knowing why. He rolls out of bed, covered in sweat. In his mind’s eye he can still see Jackson’s face, telling him—

Scott shakes his head, putting it out of his mind. He hasn’t dreamed of his own Games in a while.

Scott looks at the clock stupidly and tries to maneuver through the soggy dizziness of his own mind and remember what Derek has scheduled for the day, if he should rise, have an early start.

Then it twangs through him sharply, vibrating in every nerve as he remembers. Today, the Games are starting. Today he is sending out Erica and Isaac into the belly of the beast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a question: how jarring is it that this fic is based on season 1 & 2 canon? This is the reason I didn't publish sooner and just let the new chapters sit on my hard drive. I mean, season 2 was so long ago? So much has changed. Do people even remember Matt anymore? :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy winter holidays!   
> I wanted to thank you all guys who commented on the last chapter, because I sincerely was under the foolish impression that no one particularly cared about this story any longer, and then your response was so positive and overwhelming, and you literally breathed in a new life in this fic.

His last night here Isaac doesn’t sleep. Doesn’t even try to: closing his eyes only puts him back into the tight four walls wrapped in a chain in his cellar, darkness and cold pressing from every direction. He feels the frost running up his arms, making his hair stand on end except he feels like he’s burning up from within. 

He cannot feel his palms, cannot feel his legs, barely feels where his stomach is. All the blood is boiling in his chest to the point of pain, heart hammering so fast and so hard it’s like his drowning in his own body.

Fear clogs his throat with bile, stenches his nose and pours over his eyeballs, making it hard to breathe, hard to blink, hard to think, and everything inside of him is screaming for help but all his body does is inaudibly gasp for air, more _air_.

And, miraculously, abruptly, there’s a knock on the door, and suddenly there’s the surface that he couldn’t find. Isaac emerges from the pool of anxiety, feeling literally soaked, and foamy, and he doesn’t remember how he ended up sitting on the carpeted floor, legs sprawled. He chokes, trying to draw in air.

The knocking repeats, and Isaac hurriedly scrambles to his feet, all limbs and angles and no finesse, almost smashing himself against the door before managing to unlock it. His whole body shakes. He wipes the hair from his face and smoothes over the front of his shirt to stop the jitters, before reaching for the handle.

Scott is leaning against the door frame, fluid and at ease, and Isaac pulls himself up rigidly, arms straight by his sides and pressed into his body self-consciously, hands clenched into fists. Scott’s eyebrows lift in confusion and concern when he takes in the sight of him, and Isaac is chocking in dismay.

“Going crazy on your own won’t help,” Scott says without any preamble. His expression is soft, a ghost of a smile hiding in some small details of his face, although none that Isaac can pinpoint.

“Sorry?” he echoes in consternation, afraid that he’s missing something. He barely manages to get the word out: his throat scratches, refuses to open up.

“I know how this night goes. You can’t sleep,” Scott states, not even asks; it’s just a matter of fact. “And it’s normal. But you shouldn’t be alone with your thoughts either.”

He inclines his head in a silent _May I?_ and Isaac staggers back, only glad to have the comfort of his steadfast company. He tries to swallow past the burning in his throat, to regain some control over his vocal chords.

Scott heads straight for the pitcher of water and pours Isaac a glass. “Drink up. You’re all tense.” And that’s a gentle way of putting it, Isaac knows. He drinks the water slowly, the sound of his gulps filling the stretching pause.

Scott doesn’t seem to mind the silence, standing by the window and watching the Capitol, arms crossed. He turns around at the sound of the glass being set on the table, too loud in the veiled night air.

“Better?”

Breathing no longer chokes him, so Isaac nods. He lifts his hand to his chest automatically, clutching at the front of his shirt like he wants to clutch at his heart and calm it down. Scott’s eyes follow the gesture, then return to Isaac’s face. He says nothing.

“Seems so placid, doesn’t it?” he asks instead innocuously, running his palm across the glass. “The city. So careless, and yet there are twenty-four people about to go through hell.”

Isaac thinks back to the faint memories of his brother’s Games and his father’s coping and says, “More, if you count their loved ones.”

“Yeah…” Scott agrees and turns around to look at him. “You have _anyone_ at all to get back to in the District?”

Isaac hesitates because admitting it makes him feel crippled, as do so many other things, but eventually he shakes his head. Scott doesn’t comment on that either.

“I don’t think I’ve ever said it before, but I’m sorry.”

Isaac’s eyebrows rise helplessly and he doesn’t know what to say.

“That this happened to you,” Scott clarifies.

Isaac shrugs, not seeing the point. Over the course of seventy-two years the death toll of the Hunger Games has stacked up to over a thousand. “It happens to lots of other people,” he says.

He expects Scott to wistfully say that they don’t deserve it, that it shouldn’t. He just looks at Isaac and says with bitter acceptance, “Yeah it does. But they’re not here.”

Isaac keeps clutching at the front of his shirt, and none of it makes sense to him, _what does Scott even want to say here?_ , it makes him so frustrated, this promising kind vagueness of his words, of him even coming here tonight. Then it strikes him that Scott is the survivor of the Games so it can’t be all about Isaac, this moment. “ _You’re_ here,” he points out, almost relieved.

Once out of his mouth, the words sound just as confusingly, terrifying vague, pregnant with more meaning than one.

Scott runs his fingers through his hair. “I really shouldn’t be…” he chuckles, but instead of trying to backtrack he sits down on the edge of the bed.

Isaac can’t help feeling confused again. “Didn’t you say you know how this night goes?” he asks carefully. “I thought—don’t you—” he looks askance, not wanting to presume, “I mean, don’t you do this every year?”

Scott shakes his head. “Who’d let me?” he laughs bitterly, than catches himself and looks up in alarm. “I _want_ to. I wasn’t alone my last night before the Games, Stiles was with me. But this—” he waves his hand between them vaguely, “you’re very strange to me.”

Isaac’s mouth opens and he feels a little sickened, afraid of the implication, hot tendrils of unease crawling over his skin.

“Tributes look at me and they just—they see the _Capitol_. Every mark it left on me. They see the advantage of having survived and not being at risk and they don’t—they can’t trust that. I can’t really do much about it.” Scott looks momentarily rueful before blinking and abruptly clamming up for no apparent reason, his face changing as he retreats into his shell of politeness. “You don’t need to hear that, I’m sorry. It’s just pointless rehashing—” he waves his hand dismissively, “unhelpful white noise.”

Isaac stares at him uncertainly. “You know that not everything you say to me has to be about the Games,” he says.

Scott looks up at him and it’s like he really doesn’t know, like it’s all he should be good for. The corners of his mouth turn slightly upward, reluctant and insincere, because what does it matter anyway? They are mere hours away from the Games. It is a little too late to start talking about anything other than that.

“It’s okay,” Isaac offers, his voice surprisingly firm, and now the tables are turned and it is he who is somehow, inexplicably, in a position to be reassuring Scott instead of the other way around. “You’ve done everything you could for me and Erica. Said all the right things before I knew I needed then. It’s gonna be… what it is.”

Scott smiles. It’s a very odd smile, like a pencil drawing that got erased and faded over time: something once clear and frequent and unhindered but now wan and only barely legible. And yet, no matter how faded, it is also genuine.

“Thank you,” Scott says. “That’s how I know you’re ready.” He stands up and Isaac immediately steps back, conscious of his body, of radiating fear and anxious thoughts, of restless heat roiling low in his gut. He grips the edge of the table to steady himself.

Scott doesn’t care. He is looking back at him with his impossible, infuriating, ( _coveted_ ) softness, relaxed and loose in all the places where Isaac has always been anything but. He takes one step closer and Isaac’s entire body locks down in response, a hot ball of fear weighing heavily in the pit of his stomach.

Scott reaches out and covers Isaac’s hand with his own. His skin feels coarse and warm. Isaac looks down at their fingers, half-intertwined, and he still doesn’t know what this means, what any of it means. Another thing that he is too late to figure out.

“I should go,” Scott says quietly, “let you get some sleep.” His hand disappears. “You gonna be okay?”

Isaac nods jerkily, trying to find his voice inside his scratchy throat. “Fine,” he croaks out. “I’ll be fine.”

He believes in what he said. It’s gonna be what it is.

 

***

 

_“I feel good about my chances.”  
_

_They’re lying crisscrossed on Scott’s bed, staring at the ceiling, too rattled to go to sleep._

_“Oh yeah?” Stiles echoes, a little apprehensive of that statement._

_It sounded boastful just now, Scott knows, like something out of a mouth of a Career, arrogant and foolhardy, but it isn’t entirely insincere. Derek has trained him good, trained him well, and whenever Scott manages to detach himself from the fact that the Games are starting tomorrow, when he floats over his own numbing fears, he does feel like he’s actually ready to face them._

_When he does remember, however, when he feels it with every corner of his being—_

_Scott sighs and turns his head, looking at the Capitol lights, twinkling at him with infuriating unfazed constancy._

_“It’s the only thing that allows me to fall asleep.”_

_They don’t talk much that night, almost not at all, but Scott curls up in a ball and does not, does **not** think of District Five and his mother, and how he wants to be eight years old and to run into her arms and bury himself in the safety of her. Stiles wordlessly shares the silence and the darkness with him, wraps his arms around him, and Scott knows, is **ready** for it, that he won’t have any of it starting tomorrow, that he will be alone. _

_But tonight it’s the only way he can make it without shattering. Like he’s trapped in a cube of fragile glass that will crack if you squeeze too hard, and he’s letting Stiles carry it, cradle him, and for the last time allows someone to make him feel safe._

 

***

 

They call this room the “stockyard”—like in a slaughterhouse. It’s not a Capitol name, naturally, but it’s the one the Districts give it and it sticks.

The mentors aren’t normally present at the final line, as far as he knows, but when Isaac gets there, Derek’s waiting for him. For a moment Isaac allows his heart to sink in surprised disappointment. Somehow, he expected it to be Scott, after _everything_.

Derek straightens upon seeing him, and there’s something different about him, about how he appears, though Isaac can’t put his finger on it.

“Let me look at you,” Derek says, putting his hands on his shoulders, and then Isaac does find the word he’s looking for: _approachable_.

He has been wary of Derek’s hands—those are a fighter’s hands, a winner’s, strong and muscular and holding a promise of pain. Isaac watched them curl into fists and something in his stomach has always tightened as well, in a bad sort of anticipation stemming from his childhood nightmares. And he finds he is not afraid anymore, that Derek finally doesn’t look like a wall of sharp angles and dark prospects and threats; to see him off he is finally a friend.

“You should eat,” Derek says, nodding at the table full of food. Isaac looks at it and thinks he might actually throw up, but he also knows that there’s no telling how fast he’ll be able to find any food out there, if any, and he really should glutton himself one last time. He sits down at the table and tries.

“Don’t let your mind wander,” Derek tells him, sitting down opposite of him. Isaac looks up and honestly tries not to think of the Games. Instead, he finds himself wondering if at this moment Scott is having the same conversation with Erica.

“Just run and find water. Keep safe. Stay strong. And when the moment comes, fight as you must.”

Isaac gulps down a chunk of food uncomfortably and finds his appetite gone. He looks at his hands and imagines blood on them and sees his father’s hands with his own blood on it and he shudders, closing his eyes in revulsion.

“Isaac,” Derek’s voice is soft but strong, pulling him out of it. “Tell me. Have you found that thing to keep you strong?”

Isaac thinks back to clutching at Scott’s solid warmth with his scared hands, of the words they traded that day that he isn’t ashamed to repeat any longer. “My father,” he says.

Derek reels back, brows knitting together in angry disappointment. “ _Why?_ The man beat you up and treated you worse than a stranger would. You think his memory will save you?”

Isaac gulps painfully, avoiding looking at Derek’s face. Those are not the things he wishes to revisit (although he isn’t sure he’ll ever be free of them,) and Derek just blunders in without consideration or care.

“He wasn’t _always_ like that,” he says softly but steadily and hopes that he will understand, just like Scott did.

And Derek does, somehow, he truly does. Any man who has gone through the Games understands all too well how it is to be a softer, kinder person and be hardened, reaching sometimes unimaginable cruelty. Derek gives him a long hard look, lips pursed tightly together, and offers Isaac a short jerk of a chin that doesn’t even look like a nod but from Derek even that’s agreeable.

“All right,” he acquiesces. “Before life broke him your father loved you.”

Isaac exhales a breath he’s been holding with some relief.

Derek leans over the table and puts his hand beside Isaac’s but doesn’t touch him. “The Games will try to break you too,” he says. “But you’re better than him and you must not let them. You’re capable of great things, Isaac.” He leans back in his chair, his face grave and his voice growing sharp. “You know, we get tributes sometimes who are unprepared and _nothing_ we do can change that. We’re just sending them off to die and we _know_ it. Scott always hopes for the better. I never do.”

Derek stares off into the distance, somewhere over Isaac’s shoulder, then stands up, does a bit of his angry anxious pacing. Isaac stands up too, almost kicking his chair over, and twists his fingers nervously. Derek looks at him.

“I believed in two tributes in all my time as a mentor,” he says. “I believed in Scott. And now I believe in you. You come back to us, dammit. Prove me right. Scott will never forgive himself if you don’t return.”

Isaac’s heart makes an uncomfortably painful jolt in his chest. “Scott does not forgive himself anyone who hasn’t returned,” he points out quietly.

“No, he doesn’t,” Derek agrees, and then pulls out something from his pocket. It is a tiny figurine carved out of dark wood. Isaac has seen Scott working on it when he had time to spare. Now, on Derek’s open palm, he can see that it’s a wolf hanging from a leather lace. “You haven’t got a token,” Derek says and pushes his palm forward, means for Isaac to take it.

Isaac accepts it with tentative fingers and stares at it uncertainly. “Does he know you’re giving it to me?” he asks, and his voice comes out as a croak.

“Yes,” Derek confirms, and Isaac still doesn’t know what to do with it. Awkwardly, he pulls it over his head and straightens over his chest. Derek’s looking him and his face is almost soft with an almost smile.

A blaring sound announces that it’s almost time for launch, and Isaac jumps up a little, his limbs growing cold. Derek catches him with his hands, squeezes his shoulders, staring into his eyes.

“Remember what I said earlier? You’re important enough. You’re important to _us_. To me. To Scott. Fight for that.”

 

***

 

_“How many has there been?”_

_“I don’t know… A lot? Twenty?”_

_(He sounds almost hopeful. The liar. He knows the count better than anyone else.)_

_Jackson snorts derisively. “Don’t you pay attention at all? It’s been fifteen at the most.”_

_“Sixteen, I think. I hope.”_

_“So, what happens once it reaches twenty one?”_

_“Oh, they’ll let us know if we lost count. Not like they’re gonna let the three of us just sit here.”_

_“Not what I meant. When we’re the last ones—”_

_“Yeah, we all know what you meant,” Jackson growls. “And we all know what’s gonna happen then.”_

 

***

 

“I guess this is good-bye,” Erica says awkwardly that morning. Derek and Scott say nothing but Scott smiles at her kindly. She huffs out a breath, both arrogantly exasperated and vulnerably broken, and hugs him, much to his surprise. His hand comes to rest warmly against the small of her back.

Derek looks like he might grow actual porcupine needles if she attempts to do the same to him. She pretends not to notice but her hug is stiffer and Derek just stands there like she’s putting chains around him, uncomfortable and immobile.

Isaac stares at Scott obliquely, wanting to at least say something meaningful, something true. He’s mulling over words, all of them embarrassing and not a little pitiful, words like ‘grateful’, and ‘treasure’ and ‘friendship.’

“Good luck out there,” Scott says suddenly and offers him his hand to shake and Isaac stares at it, feeling absolutely lost. It’s no longer night-time and Scott is once again a mentor, official and apart, distance growing between them without anyone making a step. Something in Isaac sags, something so visible that Scott’s face breaks and he withdraws completely, pulling his hand onto himself like Isaac’s disappointment burnt him. It’s all wrong, this moment, and for a second it flares up in him, the old pain, that _yes, it’s what you do, you just disappoint them, all who would care about you, you do nothing but let them down,_ and he steps forward because no, he won’t have that.

“Isaac,” Scott’s voice pierces through his chokeful of anxiety, grounding him like he always does, and something’s changed, his demeanor. He’s no longer a mentor, he’s just Scott, just like last night. “I just—I’m glad—” he loosens his lips into a crooked smile but sobers up quickly in alarm, banishing it from his face so fast like it were never there—because what he was about to say might have sounded really horrible. But Isaac understands.

“I know,” he says quickly, and makes himself press his palm into Scott’s arm, just above the elbow. Any type of physical contact is a puzzle to him, and he isn’t sure he conveys what he wants to, so he adds, “I’m glad too.”

Scott looks down at his hand, and Isaac almost takes it back cowardly, but then Scott looks him in the eyes and smiles his genuine smile—not the plastered habitual one but the one he means. It comes out incredibly sad.

It may be a lie, what they’re saying, but looking at him Isaac does believe that Scott is glad for having got to know him. Would have been glad to know him for a hell of a lot longer.

He drops his hand then and turns away because he _has_ to, because cracking in his chest is an unbearable grief. He was often a fool who didn’t value what he had, but now he’s got so many questions, so many needs, and leaving he is filled with such regret. He wants to understand Derek and find solidarity with him. To know Stiles’s whole story of how he got to be here. To feel the satisfaction of Scott dropping his guard around him. For there not to be any barriers between them. He wants it all with a maddening desperation.

But you can’t breathe enough before death.

 

***

 

_In those moments when Derek hits the peak of his rage, lashing out with more than just hands, his words hitting the soft tissue like sharp shards of broken glass, he will be calling what Scott did cowardly and cruel._

_When Scott decides to beat himself up for the things he did in the Games, he will agree that he was both of those things._

_The first time Scott faces another tribute in the arena, he thinks he’s a goner. He is weaponless; the other boy is swinging an ax. He is upon Scott before he can even think of running, pushes him against a tree so that the bark bites at his skull and scratches him till he bleeds. Scott struggles until he is knocked down, and thrashes in the grass, trying to find his bearings and to somehow get away. He catches a glimpse of the boy’s face and there is a shadow in his eyes, not of blood but of reluctance. He is in it to win, just as they all are, but he doesn’t quite have the stomach to sink his ax into someone’s head._

_Instead he drops beside Scott, thrusting one knee against his chest, and puts the handle of his ax against Scott’s neck, pushing down. Scott cannot even growl anymore, all the air cut off from him, and the world around starts to dim. He tries shoving the boy away but his arms are rapidly losing strength and he can’t—he can’t—he searches the grass for something—it is wet and muddy and pointless—his fingers dig into the other boy’s calves trying to buck him off—fingers hit something—solid, scratchy, a rock. With his final exhaustive breath he strains for it, until his fingers drag it into his reach, let him clasp his palm around it. He swings._

_There is a wet cracking sound and Scott can breathe once again, sucks the air in with desperate wheezing. He shoves the boy off of himself and turns on his stomach, tears standing in his eyes, body shaking with terror and with **life**. He drags himself away, leaving a wet trail in the soaked earth. The other boy lies still._

_The sight of him makes Scott even sicker. He’s still holding the rock and he unclenches his fist promptly, tosses it aside. It gets stuck in the mud and doesn’t slide very far, and Scott can see the dark red stain on it. It makes him gag and sob even more. On hands and knees he drags himself towards the boy, pries the ax out of his hand with shaky fingers and throws it away, just as a precaution, then bends to check his neck for a pulse. The tribute groans in protest and his eyelids move. Scott exhales in relief that turns into a sob that almost chokes him, and his heart feels like it’s about to explode. He thinks he might throw up after all, and instead starts to cry._

_But he can’t stay here. Hiccupping uncontrollably he gets back up to his feet, turns and runs, runs blindly, tripping over himself and crawling and scraping at the ground, runs until his legs and lungs are on fire, until his body protests and forces him to his knees, exhausted, drained, breath heavy and unbearable, and he sprawls in the mud, turns on his back, hugging himself, and wails._

_And tears drip down his cheeks._

_And rain dribbles on his face._

 

***

 

_He doesn’t know that after he leaves that first boy, other tributes find him. Doesn’t know how his hand grabs blindly for the ax that isn’t there anymore, cannot find it, nor that his chest makes a squishy splitting sound when a spear is sunk into it, full force, going so deep they have to leave it there, unable to yank it out._

_The second one doesn’t leave him so blissfully ignorant._

_Scott isn’t sure if he stumbled onto him like that, or if it was the other boy who stumbled out of the bushes and collapsed before Scott’s feet. After a while details like these do not matter._

_“Help me,” the boy begs, his throat raw. All of his face is slick with tears._

_His shoulder is twisted unnaturally, probably dislocated, arm hanging limply, but worse is the wound to his leg. Through the bloody tatter of clothes Scott can’t see if it has been a blade or a spear (isn’t sure he wants to) but the flesh is torn, is festering, and bile rises up in his throat that he has to swallow._

_“Please, I’m not—I don’t wanna die!—” he is blubbering, tears and snot streaming out of him in an uncontrollable rush of fear and pain and rage. “They’re coming, they’re so close, please help me ohgo-ah,” he crawls towards Scott like he wants to grasp at the hem of his trousers. Like Scott can somehow protect him. Like there’s any reason he should. (There are.)_

_There are so many reasons._

_Because the boy is hurt, because he’s human, they are all human, not animals like the Games want them to be, and **Scott’s** human and if there’s anything he is afraid to lose it’s **that** , being able to look at himself in the mirror once he’s out, if he ever is, doesn’t want to lose his humanity, and he’s got such a fucking bleeding heart if he doesn’t help he won’t be able to breathe, won’t be able to take it—he has to, he can hear them approaching, the twigs are snapping sharply, and there are voices, someone’s coming—_

_(His face is so close Scott can see his lashes, sticky with tears that have soaked them through, are still streaming from his eyes as he tries to catch his breath and can’t.)_

_“I’m sorry…” slips out of him helplessly._

_“No!—you can’t!—you can’t leave me!—”_

_Scott can feel his own tears burning at the back of his throat but he shakes his head. Someone’s close—maybe animals, maybe wind, but maybe people—and he staggers back, almost falling on his ass, but step by step he retreats._

_“I can’t help you,” he mutters, and he isn’t even sure if the boy hears him over his own desperate hoarse screaming of ‘Please!’._

_The cannon blast catches up with him soon after while he runs through the forest like he can outrun the weight of his own cowardice and betrayal. He cannot be sure, it might be a coincidence, but in his gut he knows that someone has found the tribute, and maybe it was not his hand, not his blade, not his kill, but it **does** feel like his fault. _

_Guilt makes him sink to his knees and clutch at his head, bury his face into his palms and sob and heave. He can’t even cry he is all messed up, turned inside out, and he just screams, keens, and the forest moans around him._

_“I’m sorry…” he says again, like letting it out will make something in him breathe easier. “Imsorryimsorryimsorryimso—”_

_He doesn’t really know who he’s saying it to. The boy whose pleas he refused and who is most likely dead because of him? Or the others, watching him from the Capitol and beyond? The thought of it hits him all of a sudden, and it makes him want to weep both more and less at once, dries his tears in a sudden chokehold of fear even though he feels like breaking down._

_“—imsorryimsorry—”_

_Sorry about Derek whom he keeps disappointing. Sorry about Allison who will never be able to look at him like before. Sorry about Stiles whose friendship he is sure he’s lost by now except the thought is too painful, too unbearable to consider._

_Worst of them all, his mother. He cannot begin to even consider how she copes, doesn’t want to imagine what she thinks of her son, what a coward, what a weakling he is, what a letdown, what a failure, I’m sorry, Mom, gutless, pathetic, pitiful—_

_Pulling at his hair, slamming his fists against his thighs, he screams himself raw, cries until his tears begin to sting like the acid rains of District Five. Screams and cries and begs for the boy he used to be but will never, never redeem or reclaim._

_That boy is gone for good._

 

***

 

_Jackson smiles at the sight of him, leering and blithe and promising death._

_“What do you know,” he says. “District Five. Told you this would happen. Although I admit I am a bit surprised you held out for as long as you did.”_

_Scott’s hand goes for the small knife at his hip, his only weapon. The wood of the handle is smooth and threatens to slip out of his slick scared palm._

_Jackson laughs. “Don’t be absurd.” He twirls his own weapon, which is a simple bludgeon. Fitting, since he is such a hammer of a man._

_Scott stands, coiled, and knows that he cannot make himself attack, it is not who he is. (Not yet.) He wonders how many people Jackson has killed by now because he sure as hell doesn’t have the same apprehension._

_Jackson raises his club and lunges at Scott with a snarl. Scott lifts his hand to deflect, running on sheer instinct that is way baser than anything that Derek has taught him, and it is crude and panicky and does little to stop the blow. Jackson repeats his strike—once (and it hits his wrist, and Scott bends, clutching at his arm, the knife flowing out of his hand, and he doesn’t even care because it hurts so much), twice (and it lands somewhere around his neck and shoulder, sending him toppling to the ground, ears ringing)._

_In front of him in the grass is a pile of long sturdy branches collected by someone for a fire. Scott doesn’t overthink it: he grabs one of the thicker ones and rolls onto his back, arms stretched out in front of him, this time exactly like Derek has taught him. Jackson’s strike lands across the impromptu staff, and the wood holds. Jackson staggers back a few steps, and Scott gets back on his feet._

_They eye each other warily, and Jackson is no longer so smug. He tosses his bludgeon from one hand into another, changing his grip, and then raises it high and charges again. Scott brings his staff up to parry when Jackson drops low, diving underneath his raised arms and aiming for his knees. Scott cannot even say how his hands react as fast as they do, but he finds his staff lowered just in time to protect himself._

_They are both breathing heavily. Scott silently praises Derek and the training he has managed to beat into him. He feels on fire and so very, very afraid to lose this streak of luck that seems more blind instinct than skill._

_Jackson falls back, watching him with unease. Scott lifts his staff and feels it wobble. Looking down he finds the branch cracked in the middle. Jackson’s mouth twists into a sneer once again, and he charges._

_Scott picks the branch up and breaks it across his knee in two, barely managing to raise both halves in time to counter. His feet slide backwards in the mud and he almost loses his balance. Wood smacks against wood._

_Jackson swings hard and fast, his attacks raining down on Scott from head to toe, trying to find a breach. He wields his club with one hand, keeps the other free for balance. Scott doesn’t see the opening it offers at first—he’s not nearly as good as Derek, not as sharp, and he thinks about his defenses first, not the point of attack. But then sharp realization pricks him and he notices. And when Jackson’s club and his stick collide once again, he uses his other hand to swing outward, from his right hip and to where their weapons are crossed, slamming the second half of his stick into Jackson’s vulnerable wrist._

_Jackson hisses, grabbing at his hand and letting go off the club instinctively. His torso swivels away—another opening right there. Scott does what Derek has taught: the second blow comes across the small of Jackson’s back, making him yelp and arch in pain; the third lands on the back of his thighs, dropping him to his knees. He does not get up. Hunched, still cradling his hand, he waits expectantly._

_Scott finds he doesn’t know what to do._

_“What are you waiting for?” Jackson spits out when the pause stretches for too long. His breathing is heavy and loud. He knows he is beaten._

_“I can’t—” Scott chokes and stumbles backwards, and it is not the thing he should reveal to an enemy, even a defeated one, but there it is nonetheless._

_Jackson turns to look at him, face incredulous and disbelieving. He starts to get up and Scott thinks it is high time he started running._

_Suddenly, everything around them collapses. The world rumbles. The earth shudders like it’s screaming. Scott twists his head in primal panic and sees stones rolling at them from the top of the cliff they’ve been fighting in the shadows off._

_“Look out!” he shouts, staggering backwards and ducking behind one of the trees. He feels the thuds of the rocks vibrating against the trunk, echoing his pounding heart, but it’s old and thick and protects him until the stones stop falling. The air is left heavy with yellowish dust that bites into Scott’s skin and eyes and airways. He coughs into the crook of his elbow, eyes watering and itching._

_“I think we got one!” someone shouts from the top of the cliff._

_Scott’s heart skips a beat. A pack of Careers, of course. He straightens from his coughing fit, stifling any and all sounds. He’s on the precipice of the woods and the trees beckon him, promising safe shelter. And he is prepared to run, like he always does._

_There’s a groan behind his back._

_He should run, knows his should, he can almost feel his brain firing that single command through his body, over and over again. Stubbornly, he leans out from behind his cover. His legs and arms tingle with the need to run._

_Jackson’s leg is trapped underneath one of the rocks. Coughing and groaning he is trying to dislodge it but he’s moving too slow. Scott watches him, torn between charitable determination and selfish fear._

_“Shit,” he curses and knocks the back of his skull against the tree, aggravated with himself. “ **Shit**!” (once again, louder.)_

_Clumsily he emerges from behind his cover and makes a beeline for Jackson. Pushing the rock aside, Scott pulls him up to his feet. Jackson clutches at him, and Scott grabs him by the shoulders, steadies him and looks him in the eyes, wondering if he’s even doing the right thing. Looks and remembers the boy pleading for his life. Jackson doesn’t plead. Scott isn’t sure he could abandon anyone ever again regardless._

_He doesn’t say anything, and neither does Jackson. Scott drapes his arm around his neck and shoulder, feels the weight of Jackson leaning against him, and then they are hobbling-running on three legs, and this is so dumb, he is so dumb, Derek is probably shooting lightnings with fury at how dumb he is, Jackson can murder him even with one bad leg because he has it in him, but Scott doesn’t let himself think about it, about any of it, any of what he’s doing, they just run—_

_“Going somewhere?”_

_A young man appears in front of them, stepping out from the shadows of the thicket, and Scott’s heart plummets, no traces of Derek’s training coming to his aid. He is helpless once again and doesn’t know what to do._

_Jackson does. He shoves Scott aside, so hard that he falls on his back. He dropped one half of his makeshift staff back at the clearing but still held on to the other, had it in his hand. Jackson grabs it before pushing and then surges forward—or tries to; it comes out more like a shuffling stumble—holding the stick in front of himself. And it is fast, and the tribute does not expect it, and he is standing too close…_

_It pierces his side like a blunt knife. Not deeply, maybe not even critically, but painful enough nonetheless that he screams and collapses onto the ground, and Scott shouts with him, in denial and empathy, and terrified and repulsed and what have they done, and Jackson limps over to him and yanks him up by his hand, barking, “Come on!”_

_They flee._

_A cannon shot echoes behind their backs._

 

***

 

_The first night they don’t talk, barely sleep: angry, afraid, miserable. They don’t trust each other nor should they, but there is little choice besides huddling close to the warmth and glaring at each other from across the fire._

_In the morning they set out to track the other Career that has been following them since the rockslide. Now they are two, and it is an uneasy, unspoken partnership, and Scott honestly doesn’t know what to expect once they find her and get a drop on her. Should he just run while Jackson bludgeons her to death? Because he knows that once Jackson’s done, he’ll turn on Scott for sure._

_She spots them before they see her and lunges before they can brace themselves, a blade poised expertly in her hands—District Two does love its swords. Before either of them can even react, the ground under her feet opens like a hungry maw and swallows her: one moment she is running and Jackson is gripping his club that will be no match to the hack of her steel, and the next she’s just gone._

_Scott blinks, mind warping in confusion, wondering if it’s a mirage, some kind of a trick. Jackson limps forward on unsure legs, gait still lopsided, and hisses sharply when he sees something. Scott follows him and understands. The ground did not open and consume her—there was no solid ground to begin with. She stepped over an expertly masked trench filled with sharpened stakes. Several of them are piercing through her now. She’s gurgling and convulsing. Her death is slow._

_“We should—” Scott’s voice breaks and he winces, gulping around the heavy chunk of bile lodged in his throat._ Help her, _he means to say, except it is so obviously pointless it would be laughable to suggest out loud. Neither of them move._

_“This was—” Jackson shakes his head, “—even for the Gamemakers, this was **brutal**.” Scott is relieved that his voice is equally shaken. He sees Jackson’s hand clenching and unclenching around his club._

_It is a sickening and a terrifying sight, but they stand and stare, unable to walk away._

_“We’re fine though,” Jackson declares, shaking his head, in a voice that aims at confidence but comes out like denial instead. “They won’t—do it to us. I don’t think this will happen to us,” he says, like he wants Scott to reassure him by agreeing._

_Scott lifts an eyebrow. “Is that because you have…” he trails off, doesn’t want to say Lydia’s name in case on cameras it will sound suspect. Jackson turns to look at him, eyebrows drawn together in confusion, and Scott stares at him meaningfully. “You **know**.”_

_“No!” Jackson reels back, affronted, except it’s rather a knee-jerk reaction and he sighs and concedes, “Yes? I don’t—Yes, it’s because of **that**.” He glowers._

_“And you really trust this much in ...what you have?” Trust this much in her, he means, since he already implied that Lydia is the thing he has._

_But Jackson gives him a strange look, almost dignified and nothing like his usual self, and says, “Yeah. I trust in what we have.”_

_We, he says, not I. And that makes Scott believe him._

 

***

 

_Scott watches the flames eat up the branches and remembers, with a painful lurch in his chest, the fireplace on their floor of the Training Center and Derek’s late-night vigils in front of it; the candlelight in his own house on winter holidays; the orange glow of the Capitol lights getting tousled in Allison’s hair; the smell of his mother’s cooking._

_He steals a glance at Jackson and wonders who it is that he misses. If the fire reminds him of the golden shine of his own District; of the fiery gleam of Lydia’s hair._

_“Are you really hoping to walk away from here with clean hands?” Jackson asks him at some point, breaking their usual silence._

_(“What did you mean when you said that_ you can’t _?” he asks the first night. He is nursing his bruised swollen ankle. Scott is kindling a fire._

_Scott gulps painfully and looks up at him. “How many tributes have you killed, Jackson?”_

_Jackson’s face is impassive. “Including that guy today? Four.”_

_Scott inhales sharply and exhales slowly and tries to be calm about it even though he wants to retch. The sight of the branch going into that boy’s abdomen will be seared into his eyelids forever._

_“And while you did that, I’ve been running,” he says. “I’m not a fighter. I just run.”_

_Jackson grimaces at him because Scott-not-a-fighter has managed to win one over him. “How did you kill them, then?” he asks again, having missed the point._

By inaction, _Scott thinks, but although he is allowed (and fully intends) to feel guilty for it, he cannot claim any kills. “I haven’t killed at all.”_

_“Fucking get out!” Jackson exclaims, a little too loudly. It spooks a bird that flies out of the shrubs with an alarmed squawk, and for a moment they look around cautiously._

_“Lucky, I suppose,” Scott responds eventually. He doesn’t know if he can explain.)_

_He sighs, pulls his knees up to his chest and rubs his forehead against the worn fabric of his trousers. At one point he **did** hope for it—a point so distant, so buried in the past he cannot recall how he ever could be this naïve._

_“I’m not hoping to walk away from this at all,” he says. “We’re all dead anyway. At every point in our lives, every day, death is everywhere, invading everything. There’s no getting away from that.” Jackson doesn’t disagree._

_When Scott falls into a broken sleep that night, he dreams of Allison and his mother reaching their hands to him through the fences of District Five factories, somehow running through the woods of the arena. Allison’s sobbing, he can see the shuddering of her body and he wants to comfort her, to scoop her up into his arms, but his hands pass through her._

_He is dead anyway._

 

***

 

_They end up travelling together: still an unspoken partnership but no longer so uneasy. That Jackson doesn’t consider him a threat is a no-brainer. Why he hasn’t just finished him off is anyone’s guess, really. Scott feels stupid enough to risk it._

_At one point they chance upon a body after the cannon blast announces another death, before the hovercraft swoops in to clean up the mess. Arrows lie in the dirt around it, but two have found their target, one piercing in the shoulder and one lodged deep in the neck. It has Scott on edge to be here in case the tribute who did this is still close by, might yet return—except they soon discover that it was someone’s trap, two bows secured firmly in place and a release system that has sent the arrows flying estimating that at least one won’t miss._

_“Don’t touch the arrows,” Jackson grumbles. “More than likely that the tips are poisoned. Nightshade leaves or something. So that even a graze would kill. I bet this is District Three’s handiwork. Them and their engineering.”_

_It comes out angry, peevishly, but Scott suspects he just misses Lydia. “I miss someone too,” he says. Jackson sneers._

_“You think the pit might have been someone’s handiwork too?” Scott wonders._

_That gets Jackson to listen. “Maybe,” he concedes. Neither of them likes those odds._

 

***

 

_Scott thinks the partnership is about to finally be over when he rescues a boy from the river. Jackson is livid._

_“What kind of a moron are you?” he shouts himself raw, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. “Why would you save him?”_

_Water is dripping from Scott’s hair down his eyes, down his nose, making him sniff and blink rapidly._

_“Because he was—you didn’t hear him—he was so scared—I knew him—”_

_Scott doesn’t actually recognize the boy until he gets him to the shore. It’s Matt. To say that he knows him is an exaggeration—they haven’t exactly shared many meaningful conversations save the one after Jackson almost smashed his face in, but Scott remembers him. Jackson, naturally, does not._

_“He is our **enemy** , McCall. This is the Hunger Games, or have you completely lost track of what is supposed to be happening here?” Jackson shoves him aside. “He’ll still end up dead, most likely by **our** hand.” _

_He gets out a knife, a thick crude blade with ragged edges that he stripped from the body of the dead tribute they found, and points it at Scott, making him reel back. “Just like you and I, McCall, aren’t continuing this hand-holding into the real world, because we’ll fight for it in the end. And I will be sorry to kill you, but I’m going to do it. Exactly like I’m going to now.”_

_He lifts Matt’s head by his hair, baring his neck and pressing the knife to it. Matt just whimpers, not even fully conscious yet. He blinks, and for a second his eyes are looking up at Jackson, unseeing and filled with wretched misery. Then his eyelids droop once more._

_“Jackson—” Scott begs, stretching his arm out, like he can somehow will him to stop._

_Jackson’s arm quivers—with tautness or indecision Scott can’t tell. Killing someone while defending yourself, when you fight for dear life—it is ugly and nauseating and horrible to live with but you got no choice. It is different to be pressing a knife to the throat of someone limp and helpless. To bare their throat like an animal’s; to execute them in cold blood._

_Some days Scott is afraid of Jackson. A lot of days he pities him and what the Capitol and District One and the Games have done to him. But todays he is relieved when after a heavy moment of hesitation Jackson drops the hand with the knife and pushes Matt’s head away._

_“Damn you, McCall!” he curses._

_“We can just leave him,” Scott says, getting up and trying his best to mollify him. “Go our separate ways, and he can survive on his own—or maybe he can’t—but I’m not asking you to take him with us or anything. I just had to—”_

_He trails off because, really, he had no plan. Just an urge to rescue a boy from drowning, and Jackson is perfectly right, it made no sense whatsoever for him to do so._

_“Please…” another voice intrudes, and they both startle._

_Matt has finally recovered and is peering up at them from the ground, looking utterly defenseless in this prostrate position and muddy wet clothes. “No, don’t leave me, I can’t stand it anymore, I just… I can’t—Please—” he begs in a hoarse voice._

_Scott’s stomach does a slow flip. He looks at Jackson helplessly._

_“Oh this is just fucking great.”_

 

***

 

_When the silence becomes unbearable, he starts humming the same tune Allison used to sing to him. He doesn’t remember the words, nor would he actually embarrass himself with trying to repeat them, even in half a murmur, but humming breaks the tension somewhat._

_“What song is that?” Matt asks with a pleasant curious sort of smile._

_“I honestly don’t know,” Scott chuckles. “It’s something from another District. My friend used to,” he waves in front of his mouth, trying to convey how enchanting Allison’s voice was, but gives up, “—sing it.”_

_“Would that be your sweetheart, McCall?” Jackson snorts, but for once it comes out amused rather than disdainful._

_Scott says nothing but he’s sure his face is burning bright red. He smiles bashfully which all but confirms it. Jackson snorts again, even louder._

_“That’s right,” Matt says, remembering. “You’re doing this for a girl.” He hums. “Must be nice.” His voice sounds almost belligerent and Scott throws him a surprised glance before looking at Jackson. He has noticed it too and he shrugs and rolls his eyes._

_(Matt has long since dried from the river water. He keeps rubbing his arms, the creases of his elbows. It seems familiar. Scott thinks he has seen him do this before._

_“Great,” Jackson says. “You have saved us a junkie, too. His withdrawal will probably kill him long before we have to. Fucking Morphlings.”)_

_Matt’s District Six. Forever a loner with shaky hands and puncture marks in the shadows of his forearms._

_Maybe he is jealous that they have someone to return to. Not that there aren’t enough other reasons for him to feel like lashing out. Scott understands that, or thinks he understands. They are all drowning. They are all struggling for breath._

 

***

 

_They are woken by another cannon firing, in the early hours of the morning when the sky is still grey and the sun has not begun to rise._

_They set out to count how many has it been now: how many dead, how many still alive. How many cannon shots until it’s twenty one dead, and the three of them have to decide the winner among themselves._

_(The thought of turning on each other makes his stomach churn with fear and bile.)_

_They work out that there are at least five other tributes alive beside them._

_And one cannon shot after another that number slowly recedes…_

***

 

_At first glance he thinks it’s an execution. Except the last cannon fired a while back, so the body would have been snatched already. (He is in the woods alone, hunting for food, separate from the other two.) The closer he gets the surer he becomes that it is not an execution but another trap._

_The girl is not dead yet—it is more cruel, more gruesome than that. Her hands are tied behind her back and she’s balancing on her tiptoes on a branch that is cracking under her weight. Her face is crimson and sweaty and tear-stained and she is trying to gulp for air except little of it is coming through. Scott cannot begin to think how long she’s been suspended like this._

_“Shit… Hold on!” he shouts and looks around feverishly, searching for the way up. Someone had to string her up there. He finds it quickly, the branches mapping an inviting path upward. He starts climbing and—_

**Crrrnnnchh!**

_—the branch snaps and the girl drops down, feet dangling, rope tightening around her neck._

_Scott is awash in cold sweat and continues climbing, hoping that he’ll be fast enough to save her yet. He reaches the knot and hacks at it with his knife—not daring to look at the girl—until the rope is torn and she falls down. He jumps down after her, not bothering climbing down, not even caring that it’s too high, that it will hurt, he just needs to get to her quickly, hands shaking around the noose as he’s loosening it, and her skin is bruised purple and Scott is shaking her shoulders, palm pressing to her neck, he is pounding at her chest and pushing his ear against her lips but there’s no pulse, no breath, no flutter._

_Instead the sound that interrupts his panicked heaving is one of a cannon firing._

_Scott winces._

_“I’m sorry…” he whispers, drooping over her body, and then it hits him: they’ve talked about it at length except he’s so used to running and hiding in these woods that he forgot, for a moment he **forgot** the count. She has been the last one._

_Which means—and for a second he can’t breathe—_

(“Hey, you look like you’re a smart guy,” Scott says, even though he has no idea. He can only hope this boy has something to help him in the Games, and it is certainly not gonna be brawn. “Smart guys can make guys like Jackson eat out of their hands when they put their minds to it. Okay?”)

_The memory explodes in his head in all its utter, bitter irony._

_Matt. It has been him all along._

***

 

_“It doesn’t have to be this way, you know,” Scott tells him quietly a few nights before._

_“It does,” Matt says, his voice oddly coming out both trembling and flat._

_“Isn’t there anything for you out there? To strive for? Even to die for?” Scott gestures around them at the arena. “To not be touched by all of this.”_

_“Would you stop with this holier than thou crap?” Matt says harshly. “No one is not touched by this, all of this is rotten, everyone, every fucking child born into this world, they’re just wrong from the start. We are wrong. You can dream that you will die for your girl and that it makes it all better, but you are as full of vile as everyone.”_

_Scott stares at him, appalled. The night is so dark he can barely see the outlines of Matt’s face, but he wants to grab him, to shake him out of this pit of misery. He wants to go down to the stream and wash himself of the venom Matt has poured over him. He does neither of those things, only digs his fingers deeper into the wet earth._

_He wonders if Jackson wanted to hit him and shake him when Scott said that they’re all dead anyway. Kept saying it. He thought he was being poetic, painting grimness with half-pleasant melancholy, but Matt is right. It is vile._

_Scott swallows whatever words want to escape him and says nothing. It is not his place to tell anyone how to cope._

***

 

_“Jackson?” Scott slows down, no longer tramples blindly, hair standing on end. He is viscerally aware that he is being watched, being hunted, just as he hunts back._

_He passes the place where they set up camp: the fire is out, and Jackson seems to have taken off. Scott loathes to assume how Matt is painting it to him._

_He crawls through the woods until he reaches a clearing on the precipice of a waterfall. It is a beautiful place, lush and emerald and sparkling with nature, and Scott feels cold and sick to his stomach at the sight of Jackson waiting for him, a knife in his hands. He is leaning against a claw-like tree, scorched by the sun to the point of whiteness, and everything about him pretends to be nonchalant, and everything about him radiates alertness. He twists the knife in his hands, the tip of it captured between two gloved fingers._

_Matt is hanging at his heels, looking at Scott from behind Jackson’s shoulder. He is so used to playacting that he still appears afraid, like he truly thinks Scott might hurt them, but for a moment when their eyes meet there is a flash of dark glee in him, a sneer of ugly triumph. Scott halts completely, wondering if he should expect another trap._

_“Decided to grace us with your presence, McCall?” Jackson drawls with fake laziness. “How was the hunt?”_

_Jackson has the knife, Jackson is the strong one here, but Scott still can’t tear his eyes off from Matt. He’s scared of him more._

_“Jackson, you gotta listen to me… I didn’t do anything.”_

_“We all heard the cannon, McCall,” he says with his insufferable ‘you-don’t-fool-me’ superior sneer. He pushes himself away from the felled tree and walks the edge of the clearing. Scott starts moving in unison with him, and they are circling each other like two wolves. “What was it then, an accident?”_

_Scott hesitates. He had some time to think of what he will say. He’s still not sure if any of it is gonna sound convincing._

_“I’m sure Matt has already suggested to you that I’m gonna blame **him** for it.”_

_Jackson stills momentarily, silent and suspicious and Scott nods to himself, knowing he has guessed correctly._

_“I do,” he goes on. “I don’t know how he managed it, I don’t have solid proof for you, but he did it. Just, please, Jackson, he hung her up. Alive! That’s why the cannon fired only just now: she took time to die. So that **I** would look guilty.” Scott believes the trap was as much for him as it was for the girl. Jackson is easier to fool, and Matt must have chosen him to fight his battles._

_“Yes, this makes so much sense!” Matt pitches in, still shadowing Jackson even as he paces, never too far away. “How do you imagine I did it, exactly? I am the weakest of the three of us, no need to try and pretend that I’m not. But you’re suggesting I overpowered someone and hung them up alive?”_

_Looking at Matt, Scott is reminded suddenly of fairy-tales his mother used to read to him when he was a child. And of a demon that used to whisper lies into the hero’s ear, hanging at his back, claws piercing into his shoulders, tongue flicking inside his earlobe, suggesting, misleading, deceiving… Until he is a hero no more._

_“I don’t know how he did it, Jackson. And you don’t have to believe me, maybe I’m lying, maybe no one’s been hung, but those other bodies! You saw them, they were horrific, gruesome! You **know** I would never do that! **Could** never do that!”_

_Jackson sneers, clamming up. “No. I **don’t** know anything of the sort. I know that you **claim** to have killed no one and that I never, not once believed you had such fucking fantastic luck.”_

_“Yeah, don’t listen to him,” Matt echoes. “You know how it goes: those whose faces are trustworthy and kind turn out to be the most twisted liars.”_

_Jackson steps forward, knife flashing in his hand thirstily, and Scott doesn’t back down, he starts towards him instead, words rushing out as he remembers another thing. “Jackson… Jackson, wait! Remember when we met!” This makes the other boy pause, just momentarily. “Think back to that! I **ran**. I ran away like a **coward** because I couldn’t face you. I didn’t want to die but I didn’t finish you off either. It’s just… That’s not me. That’s not who I am. Don’t you remember that?”_

_He watches Jackson mull over that, and Matt stands behind him all a-bristle, afraid to be uncovered._

_“No, I remember something different…” Jackson says slowly, and something about his face changes, clears. “You **returned** for me. You re—aghhg—”_

_Matt doesn’t wait for Jackson’s epiphany to bring him down and stabs him in the neck._

_“Noooo!” Scott yells, stumbling forward, hand outstretched and mouth agape, or maybe he only thinks he yells, maybe it gets trapped in his throat._

_Jackson’s eyes widen and he looks at Scott, face drained of all color, hand slowly moving to grab at the stick Matt has pushed into his neck. He yanks it out and hurries to cover the wound, but his fingers turn red fast, blood eagerly seeping through. His whole body is shaking and he crumbles to his knees._

_He keeps staring at Scott, and Scott has never noticed how green and bright his eyes are but now it seems to be of utmost importance, every last freckle, every little piece of him, never to be forgotten. All of his attention is on Jackson as if it is enough to keep him alive, and then tears blur his vision completely, hiding everything from view._

_Matt doesn’t allow him even a second to recover. Armed with neither a weapon nor a plan, he throws himself at Scott with rabid tenacity, determined to exterminate the last remaining obstacle between him and victory. Him and survival. The force of his impact sends them rolling through the grass. Matt’s hands, still covered in specks of Jackson’s blood, clench around Scott’s throat._

_“Matt, stop,” he manages to croak, even though it’s a pointless plea, the boy is too far gone._

_“You stop!” Matt whines-growls back at him. His hands slide to the base of Scott’s skull, grabbing his head and bashing it against the ground. “Stop! Telling me! What! To do!” His voice is growing higher-pitched and desperate, and he keeps smashing Scott’s head down, and thank god it’s just a soft soggy soil, not rocks, but it still hurts like hell, stirring his brains until he wants to vomit, hands floundering about._

_He feels a small knife at his belt: Jackson has insisted he should carry one—even if, to quote him, “he is a little bitch”. Scott has never been sure why Jackson even wanted him armed. The Games are not a place where you worry about anyone’s safety but your own. Perhaps he has simply been anticipating a showdown between the two of them, and it would have made him feel a modicum better to have the guy he spent considerable time travelling with not completely defenseless when the time comes. Whatever his reasons, at this point Scott no longer cares._

_He yanks the knife out of its sheath and swings blindly in Matt’s general direction. (The world before his eyes is dimming already and he only sees a general shape.) The blade slashes wetly across the flesh—but Matt doesn’t even feel it. He’s an addict, a Morphling, he is in so much pain all the time he is almost impervious to it. And he just keeps choking him, pressing him down into the ground._

_Scott swings again, and this time the blade sinks into Matt’s shoulder and stays there. Matt screams and arches back, and Scott coughs and tries to claw his way out from under him and wheezes for air through his painfully tight throat._

_At this moment with a painful thud Jackson crashes into them._

_The force of the impact propels Matt off of Scott, and then they are just a tangle of limbs, rolling through the grass, the three of them, fighting against any pressure blindly, until there is no earth underneath them at all and they topple down from the sloping edge of the bottomless cliff._

_…digging into the ground, clutching at the tree roots, nails breaking at the stones, fingers tearing out chunks of grass with clots of earth in desperate attempts to hang on to something, the three of them an angry knot of spittle, desperation and survival…_

_Blood trickling down the forehead and rendering him blind; blood rushing in his head and rendering him deaf. The air howls around them chillingly, tousling their hair. The faint sound of water below the cliff is not comforting, because the fall from this high will kill them either way._

_The thought of it makes Scott’s stomach plummet, but he clears his head and focuses on the feel of his fingers, on finding nooks he can hold onto without slipping. He is barely aware of Jackson and Matt struggling alongside of him. It clogs his throat, the sudden fear that settles into his limbs like iron. His arms tremble and he doesn’t have the strength, but he will never, never let go, needs to pull himself out of this. He is not, not dead yet after all, and he is pierced from head to toe with a startling, burning desire to live._

_He is almost at the top when something yanks him back. He grabs at the roots of the tree and presses himself chest flat into the earth with maddening fear and looks down. He think his pants might have gotten caught on one of the roots but it’s not that. It’s Matt. Ever preserving in spite of everything. By rights, by all that is fair, he is weak, he is the sprout that grows in the shadow, without sun, one that should wither, unable to withstand the hardships, but instead he is a weed that withstands everything._

_He is tugging Scott down, and Scott feels the roots that he’s holding onto giving way, coming loose. He tries pulling himself up and out of Matt’s reach._

_“Matt, let me go, and I will help you!” he shouts. “If you keep doing this, we’ll both fall!”_

_“ **You’ll** fall! I shall return the victor!” Matt screams back at him._

_“Just let go and I will pull you up after me! I am almost there!”_

_Matt does not let go._

_Instead it is Jackson who crawls over to them like a pale spider and he shoves Matt into his ribs with his foot. Scott feels the impact of it pulling him down, the roots that are holding him in place slackening even further. His heart pounds wild with fear._

_“Jackson, don’t!” he begs._

_Jackson looks up at him, his face bloodless and cold. “Hold on, Scott,” he says gravely, and pushes Matt again._

_Scott endures another powerful tug, and then there’s a ripping sound, and he feels his trouser leg tearing at the level of a knee where Matt has been clutching at it. His clothes have been worn and shredded and they can’t take the pulling and the swaying and the threads just split._

_Scott hears no scream. Hears no splash of water at the bottom. Matt’s just gone._

_For a moment everything is blank in his head, with a sickening nerve-wrecking combination of relief and terror._

_“Scott…” Jackson calls his name quietly, jolting him back to action._

_“Hold on!” he cries and gets himself up in three powerful pulls that suddenly seem so easy, adrenaline coursing through his veins._

_From the top off the cliff he hangs carefully and looks down. Jackson is still too far away to reach. He stretches his arm towards him anyway._

_“Come on!” he begs. “Please, Jackson, just a little longer, and you’re here.” Jackson’s pressing his forehead against the cliff, looking like he’s considering letting go an easier option. “Jackson, don’t! You’re too damned stubborn to just let go! Take my hand, **please**.”_

_Jackson scoffs… and makes himself climb._

_Scott keeps coaxing him all the way, until Jackson’s broad hand finally clasps his own, and then Scott is pulling him up with all his might, until they are both lying on the side of the cliff, arms intertwined, and Scott can hear Jackson’s heart beating against his chest, feels his lungs expanding, and he is sure Jackson can say the same of him._

_Scott lays and stares out into the sky and refuses to think past this moment. His nose is running, his eyes are burning and his throat is clogged with tears._

_“It’s okay,” Jackson says suddenly. “I’m not here for long, anyway.” He rolls over onto his back. The wound to his neck has not stopped bleeding. It’s bad, it’s so fucking bad._

_“You think they’re filming it now?” he asks tiredly._

_Scott blinks. He has not thought of it in a while—how they appear to the onlookers. “Yeah,” he says. “Of course they are.” The two of them are the only ones left._

_“Good,” Jackson nods into the sky. His eyes are closed. “I’m sorry…” he says. Scott stares. It takes him a moment to realize that Jackson’s not talking to him at all. “I’m sorry I will not be coming back,” he says._

_Scott closes his eyes. He is not an idiot. “Jackson…” he stops him._ You can though, _he means to say. Scott won’t even put up a fight. If Jackson kills him now, the Gamemakers will be here just in time to save him._

_“Jackson…”_

_He looks at Scott, and Scott sees that he too knows it._

_“I will not be coming back,” Jackson tells him. “That’s okay. It’s okay.” And it’s not, it’s really not, it’s—what makes him more deserving than Jackson, nothing! “That’s okay,” Jackson repeats firmly, and Scott swallows it all._

_“I love you…” he says tiredly. “Mom… Dad… I haven’t said it enough… I know you’re gonna miss me but don’t—don’t—it’s been good, all of it, it’s been—I was glad to be there, to be your son—” he says. It comes out a broken jumble of words, and now Jackson’s crying, not overtly, but Scott can see his tears._

_Every time he breathes, more blood spills out of his wound. “God,” Scott winces and wants to press his palm down, stop the bleeding—how can he not?_

_“Don’t!” Jackson says, a little too angry, too loud, jerking away. “Let it go, Scott. It’s gonna be soon now, anyway, I can feel it.”_

_Scott inhales a hysterical sob._

_Jackson’s eyes snap open. “Lydia!” he wheezes, turning his head to stare at Scott one last time. “Lydia, Scott. You gotta tell her something for me.”_

_Scott nods his head eagerly, desperately, because it’s the only thing he will ever be able to do for him, and to feel this helplessness crushes him from all sides._

_“Tell her—”_

_Jackson’s staring at the sky, filled with want so clear and so choking he doesn’t know how to express it, and Scott presses his forehead to the ground by his head, bringing his ear to his lips, and shuts his eyes tight and wishes he could give him all the words because every breath comes out a cough, and every cough is gurgling with more and more blood._

_Jackson can’t find the words for too long a time._

_“You said we were dead anyway. You were right.”_

_“No no no no—”_

_“Shut up. Listen. All this,” Jackson nods towards the cliff, to where Matt has fallen to his death, “this enormous pile of shit that surrounds us, that we live with every day—surviving it isn’t worth it. It’s just… not. She made it worth it. Waking up with her to hold on to… Sh—uh. She was my refuge, she always…—tell her that?—will you tell her that, Scott?”_

_Scott keeps bobbing his head like an idiot but that satisfies Jackson. (He looks so tired.)_

_“There’s a key around my neck,” he mumbles barely. “Take it. Give it to her. It was hers.” A long wet sigh. “…was hers.”_

_With shaky fingers, trembling all over, Scott palms his neck and finds the chain and slips it off of Jackson’s neck, lifting his head gently. He doesn’t even grunt in protest._

_“Jackson?” Scott calls his name, wants to shake his shoulder and is afraid to. “Jackson?” He has begun hiccupping again._

_Jackson is silent._

_Scott curls in on himself, cradling his stomach, and lets out a keen wail from the pit of it. Jackson’s key is wrapped around one of his palms securely. He shuts his eyes and puts both palms over his ears, like it will help black everything out, black this day out from existing, so that it would have never begun._

_He doesn’t want to hear, **doesn’t want to hear!** —_

_A cannon fires._

 

***

 

_The Capitol makes a spectacle of it. Of course they do. It is always bread and circuses for them first, all of it._

_Scott thinks he might have a concussion, feels like blood is clogging his ears, and he isn’t sure how he’s able to walk straight, but by the Games measurements that’s being not too severely injured so they postpone his transport to the hospital in favor of seeing him reunited with all who have been waiting for his return while everyone’s emotions are still running hot._

For love, _he has made a promise. And they want to see him win his Games for love…_

_Allison pushes her way through the crowd like an arrow, like a black lightning, hangs herself on his neck and kisses him until he can’t breathe and he honestly doesn’t mind, smiling goofily, helplessly into her lips, then into her neck, arms wrapped tightly around her waist._

_Over her shoulder he meets Derek’s eyes. Derek doesn’t do gushing, but he smiles and nods at him, and his eyes are candid, open for the first time since Scott has known him, and it’s the closest to warmth that Derek Hale gets. Scott flushes and nods back at him, heart swelling with pride._

_Among the faces that are glowing with relief and curiosity and a celebratory mood Scott spots Lydia. She’s clutching at Stiles and trying not to cry, and Scott wonders whose revolting idea it was to get her here, those media folk having undoubtedly sniffed out whom Jackson’s last goodbye was meant for. When Allison finally lets him go, Scott walks, **limps** straight towards her, passing even Stiles who is bursting with exuberance and a need to hug him twice as hard and twice as long. Derek puts a hand on Stiles’s shoulder and holds him back._

_Lydia’s trying to keep a straight face as he approaches, but Scott sees how she is biting her lower lip almost to the point of drawing blood. From his pocket he takes out Jackson’s token—a little golden key—and now all the cameras are glued to them, Scott can vividly picture them zooming in on his hand greedily, eagerly, hungrily. Lydia’s face breaks and she reaches for it, hand shaking, and Scott grabs her palm, steadies it with one hand while placing the key into it with another, closing her fingers around it and wrapping her tiny fist in both his hands._

_Then, very aware of every camera trained at them, he draws her close, into a hug, and whispers Jackson’s words into her ear, lips burrowing into her hair and brushing her earlobe._

_“You made it all worth it,” he rushes out, and it’s in the wrong order, he’s too anxious, too wrecked. “You were his **refuge**. He loved you so much. All the death and the dying and the killing and all the hell we’ve been put through—it was worth it despite it all to wake up with the thought and the promise of you. You gave him so much life.” _

_It’s more words than Jackson said, but Scott gleamed those other ones in the pain of him, in the constrictive tightening of his throat. Scott whispers them quietly but precisely. These words—they’re not for others to glutton on. They’re for Lydia, only for her. Not for anyone else._

_She sucks in a breath and lets out a stifled sob and for a moment just stands in his arms, battling tears, until she is able to step out of his embrace with nothing but a few droplets on her long eyelashes. She plants a dainty, Capitol-proper kiss on his cheek and whispers, “You’re a good man, Scott McCall. If not him, I’m glad it’s you.”_

 

***

 

_Some nights he wakes up to her face hovering above his, eyes large as suns, and his throat hurts, and after a confused second he realizes he’s been shouting. He hangs his head and reaches up to her, wraps his arms around her neck, buries his wet face against her collarbone, hides in the dark waves of her hair, and whimpers and breathes in relief because it was all a dream and this, here, **she’s** **real**._

_In the Capitol he dreams of the Games, both his own and new ones, of tributes of his year and of his mentoring, all being ripped apart, and ripping through his mind, he dreams of people that weren’t there at **all** , dreams of them to the point of hysterics and begging he doesn’t know what for._

_Later, he jerks awake in the middle of the night **alone** , all shivers and sweat, flinching at shadows that he’s helpless against—he can defeat them no more than he could defeat the tributes in the arena. He pulls his knees up to his chest and lets the sparse tears of exhaustion trickle out of the corner of one eye onto the pillow, blinking the rest back. Sometimes his mother will be awake and come into his room and hold him, cradle him because he is forever just her baby boy, and then he lets it all rush out until he’s chocking on sobs and hiccups._

_And after a while, just like Derek and Peter, he barely sleeps at all._

 

***

 

The cylinder begins to rise, and Isaac is palming Scott’s token, mulling over what Derek told him, but above all else returning to the last conversation he had with Scott.

He finds—belatedly, heart hammering inside his ribcage with the sudden discovery—that when he thinks of having someone to turn to when things gets rough, he inevitably thinks of Scott. That it would be nice to have someone to live for. Maybe to—

The metal plate pushes him out of the cylinder into the open air and Isaac gasps. For a moment he doesn’t believe this is happening, thinks he’s just blinded by bright sunlight stabbing his eyes with a sudden outpour of radiance. But it’s not that. Everything is just white. Everything is winter. The landscape is frozen over.

And it snows in hell.

 

***

 

Scott looks at the depressingly white field with the tributes popping up and his teeth begin to ache, throat crusting over. He worries for Isaac and Erica equally, has always feared for both of his tributes the same. Except his first thought now is that Isaac hates the cold, fears it to the point of being paralyzed, and for a second Scott vividly imagines himself in his shoes, being in the arena, the frosty lashings of the wind on his face, and he is terrified.

“He’ll be fine,” Derek says suddenly, and Scott turns to him in a daze, trying to shake it off and get his brain to work again. “He’s not trapped, not locked up, he is free and he is ready. He won’t choke, he’ll do fine.”

Scott blinks, looks away from Derek and stares in front of himself blindly, before saying, “You were wrong about him.”

Derek doesn’t rise to the bait, doesn’t move a muscle in his face, never does, but his silence is expecting of Scott’s next words.

“What you said to me—You just gave _up_ on him, but he’s—He’s gonna win, Derek, I can feel it. He _has_ to.”

Derek sighs, shockingly exasperated.

“You’re an idiot. You think I don’t know what makes you a remotely good mentor? Things like me _blatantly_ saying that he’s not gonna make it and that you better accept it. It made you push yourself harder to prepare him. Made you push him harder too.

“Your trials don’t end with winning the Games. You’d be lost here without me.” Derek puts his hands on his shoulders and gives him a little jolt. “I am still your mentor, Scott. I’m still looking out for you. Even if you’re too dumb to see that I know what’s best for you before you yourself know it.”

Scott is rigid with shock for a moment and then droops and leans his forehead against Derek’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I don’t even know why it gets to me.” He sits up straight, and Derek drops his arms. “It’s not like this is the first time I send them off.”

“And I keep saying it’s all because you’re an idiot,” Derek responds wryly.

Scott chuckles but it’s more like a sigh.

 

***

 

_And tears drip down his cheeks…_

_And rain dribbles on his face…_

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, this took forever, but we are almost there!
> 
> As always, I would like to thank you for your support. Your emotional investment in this story is what drives it onward. :3

_He is still here._

Two days of running and freezing and constant panic and that is the only thought that matters, that pulses in his mind with every breath he takes: he is alive. He has made it this far.

He doesn’t care about the cold or what memories lie just beneath the awareness of that cold, what ghosts of the past haunt him. He cares only that he’s that bright moving spot of color amidst almost total whiteness, like a clot of blood, drawing predators in.

At night, cooped up in a tight dark hole in the ground, it is all he can do to keep the memories at bay and remember how to breathe, remember that he put himself there, for his own safety, and that he is no one’s prisoner.

Exhaustion is the only reason he manages to fall asleep.

He finds a burrow with a snow grouse’s nest. Hunger twists his stomach up in knots and yet he doesn’t do anything with the bird for hours, only ties it up, watches it settle down and waits, head buried in his knees.

_You are weak. So pathetic. Why has God given me one good son and took him away and left me with you instead. Bah, I wish it would have been you. It should have been you!_

Isaac rubs his face where the blow landed that time and mumbles, “Don’t worry, father. I’ll perish here too. Just like you always knew I would.”

He is weak. There are twenty-three other people here with him—no, eighteen by now, he listened to the cannon blasts the night before just like everyone else—and he is expected to survive them all, to do battle with them and to take lives in order to preserve his own. And yet, he cannot kill a simple bird, one that he is quite sure was bred by the Capitol for the sheer purpose of curbing his hunger. It is defenseless, it is alive, and he can’t.

It’s deep into the night, the snow barely catching any light, when Isaac can scarcely see the bird or his own hands, that he finally does it. The sound of the bones breaking would have made him throw up if his stomach weren’t already empty. He plucks it—tugging at a fistful of feathers at a time, without any finesse, but then he doesn’t particularly care to ruin the carcass, or if his meal will contain burnt feathers—cuts it up and cooks it, and he feels like a savage.

And he’s still here.

 

***

 

His spine prickles with a sensation of not-alone-ness. It’s strange how quickly it becomes so foreign—being around other people. In the arena, being alone is the first rule of survival, is a need. On his own, all Isaac fears is discovery. The presence of someone else is the true terror.

_The sound of the front door slamming downstairs, his father crashing into the furniture, where to go, where to go, can’t hide, can’t escape, should run away but can’t—_

_—doing homework, ordinary day, his father’s footsteps outside the bedroom door suddenly, he stiffens, heart pounding hard and fast, hand freezing over the paper, clutching the pen so hard it almost breaks, he walks past his room, not drunk, not angry at Isaac, not dragging him down, not today, not today, he drops his head onto his arms and sighs, sobs in relief—_

_—every creak in his house an intruder, a danger, a foe—_

It is not an unfamiliar feeling.

He hears snow crunching behind himself and turns around rapidly, poised for an ambush, fingers tightening around a knife.

It is only Erica. She notices his bristled stance and stops, and waits for him to relax, and waits some more after he does, teetering in hesitation.

Neither of them says a word.

_“Erica, it is **me**!” he tries to appeal to her sense of reason. She stares at him like she doesn’t recognize him._

_The first day of the Games splits them up, but they are armed with the same lessons and the same advice and they end up making it for the same ground anyway. Except finding themselves reunited, they don’t know what to do with each other anymore._

_Erica has a knife in her hand, and Isaac thinks she could have snatched it from the Cornucopia because she’s fast, and Isaac thinks she could have snatched it from another tribute because she’s a survivor. He is armed only with a sturdy stick he picked up, can rely only on his strength—which is questionable._

_“Drop it!” she demands finally. Her voice is hoarse and uneven._

_“It’s a stick!” he exclaims nonplussed and his fingers tighten around it, slightly panicked. “You’ve got a knife! You drop it!”_

_“I’m not gonna drop it!” she scoffs defiantly, like he is mad to even suggest it._

_He wants to be the bigger man, to just unclench his fingers and let the stick fall down into the snow. To show her this stand-off is childish._

_His fingers wrap tighter around the wood. “Well, neither am I.”_

_He finds he just can’t afford it._

Slowly, she comes up to where he is. “How are you not cold sitting here, not moving? You’re freezing your ass off.”

“I don’t know,” he says, and what he really doesn’t know is what they’re even talking about. Like her words are code, and when he’s trying to answer them, his words are code too. Like there is another meaning to everything, but no one has clued him in. Erica doesn’t really trust him, he knows _that_ at least, and she’s angry with him. He stares at her as she sits down by his side, curious to know what is going through her head. He can’t even begin to guess, he really can’t. He sighs and settles back into sitting like he was before.

It _is_ cold. He presses his knees to his chest, hoping that it will keep the warmth with him longer. Her bad leg is jutting out straight and she strokes her thigh absently. He wonders if the cold makes it hurt more.

After a while she rests her temple on his shoulder. He turns his head and kisses her forehead in tender reassurance and pretends that everything is like it was back in the Capitol, when they were two against the world. He wants it to be true again.

But it can’t be.

 

***

 

They trek up the hill of a snowy mountain, and Isaac finds it is not so challenging. It fills him with an upbeat sort of determination—that he’s got something to strive for, something to do. (It is all a lie, of course, him tricking his own mind, pretending to fill up spaces with doing something while not doing any of the things that a tribute is meant to do.)

Erica is sullen by his side, mouth downturned into a scowl.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asks, attempting a crooked smile and not really succeeding.

She snorts derisively and shrugs with one shoulder. “Just, I haven’t actually thought about it. How it would feel to be enemies.”

He stops in his tracks and looks at her back as she marches on, feeling cold coiling in the pit of his stomach like a python. He doesn’t want to think about that. “We’re not enemies,” he objects flatly, his tone daring her to argue.

She looks back at him. There are only a few feet between them but it suddenly feels like a chasm. “If we survive, we’re gonna be. And yesterday—” She hesitates and falls silent, forehead creasing, then shakes her head like it doesn’t matter, but it **_does_**.

“Say it.”

“There’s a myriad of ways it could have ended between us,” she says, her tone defensive and apologetic at once. She pleads with him to see it too. “And I feel like if I hadn’t backed down… I don’t know what you would have done.”

He wants to say something reassuring and profound but can’t. His fist clenches as he remembers wrapping his fingers tightly around the stick and considering where to strike. He was considering _where to strike,_ where to attack for maximum damage with something so blunt and inefficient as wood, he was—

“Honestly, I haven’t even considered a possibility that you wouldn’t,” he says. As far as justifications go, it sounds flimsy and pathetic. “I literally couldn’t imagine it going down any other way.”

But he could. He just didn’t want to.

She looks at him like they’re separated by a glass wall, like she’s far away instead of just a few feet before him, watching him from the other side of something. Her eyes are big and sad and bright, and it is like there’s a film over them, and he has no idea if he’s getting through to her at all.

If she believes he might murder her just to be this one step closer. And if she might do the same to him.

 

***

 

_On the fifth day his knife is stained with the blood of a fellow tribute._

_(it was self-defense)_

_She will not be the only one he kills._

 

***

 

On the fourth day Erica has another seizure, and he has no idea what to do. They’re walking through the arena, no longer feeling so very purposeful, and she cries out when her leg cramps, falling to her knees.

“Erica?” he turns around and runs back to her, tearing off his gloves. He cradles the back of her head with one hand and lets her fingers clutch and intertwine with the other.

Inside a minute her whole frame is convulsing, and it’s like her body is suddenly vacant, like Erica is just gone from it.

Maybe that’s how it is to her, he thinks, like she’s out of her own body, except no, that’d be stupid, she must feel locked-in, and with a sudden surge of panic he knows **_exactly_** how she must be feeling— _tight and dark and scratching to get out and can’t breathe and drowning,_ and he waits for her to ride it out, until she is panting breathlessly in his arms, body taut and trembling and about to combust with the next painful breath.

He lifts her up and crushes against himself because _he knows_.

He carries her back to the nearest cave, makes a fire, feeds her melted ice and cooked snowberries.

It’s still as early as mid-day but it doesn’t matter. He makes her lie close to the coals that are still radiating heat, and lies next to her for warmth.

He still doesn’t know how to talk to her, and she still doesn’t seem to want him to. They lie and continue not to say anything at each other. Isaac finds it all unexpected and odd.

He has though himself incapable of such generosity. Of lending himself to another for comfort the same way Scott has been lending himself to him. He is glad to know he’s wrong. That maybe he’s something other than a leech. Something more than selfish. For a split second he allows himself to be relieved that if him and Scott were to meet again, he would be able to give back, _he would be,_ he knows that now.

Erica is human-warm and an echo of a world outside the arena, a dream of a normal life. He feels her back expanding, in and out, and counts her breaths until he starts breathing in sync with her. Until he allows himself to forget that they are in the middle of a snowy trap, or that there are tributes hunting them, or that they are a part of the Games at all.

He closes his eyes and imagines that they are just a boy and a girl in District Five. And maybe they know each other from school, and maybe they know each other from the park, and maybe they buy fruit from the same stall and strike up a conversation one day, but they do know each other. ( _He’s never had friends._ ) He imagines that it is night-time, and they have a sleep over—must be at her place, and it’s homey, it’s nice—and in the morning Isaac will go over to _Scott’s_ house, and they will sit at the edge of the forest—Isaac likes the forest, the heady smell and the cool humidity and the depth of it—and they will have dinner with Derek, and Stiles, and even Peter, and they will laugh and tell stories about their ordinary days, because life is normal and free of death or survival, or grief or fear.

He falls asleep.

And dreams it all.

 

***

 

In the end he doesn’t even have time to be revolted. For there to be disgust the decision has to be moral, has to be a struggle—and it happens too fast to be any shade of thought-out.

They shouldn’t have stopped in the middle of the day—that he knows. And he knows that thay head no other choice. Erica’s sleep is deep and exhausted, her mind hiding somewhere within the safe memories of home. Isaac hasn’t been a heavy sleeper for many years, not when every creak of the floor could be announcing his father coming with a bottle clutched in his hand, half emptied into his stomach, half spilt over his shirt.

His sleep is restless. He isn’t instantly aware that the sound is happening outside the cave and not in the haze of his mind, but then his body reacts to the possibility of pain, quick and sharp, and he sits up, alert.

“Erica…” He touches her shoulder and shakes her. She opens her eyes, confused and afraid, and he has to push his palm over her mouth while she fights against him for a few moments before realizing he is not the threat.

She tries getting up and presses her lips around a stifled gasp when her ankle twists under her weight. “My leg…” she whispers, and he quickly puts his finger against his mouth and nods; he’s got this, he’s got her.

He frees one branch from the remnants of the fire. The cold has overwhelmed it. The coals aren’t smoldering anymore, and the melted snow around it has glazed over. He feels himself vibrating like thundering metal.

She rushes into the cave with a yell, and all he can think for a second is _shit_ and _she’s a girl,_ and he cannot possibly fight a girl, not unless she’s District Two but then he’d be dead already, and she is not, she is clumsy and desperate. He swings at her with the branch form the fire and she recoils from the strike, shielding her face, and something clenches painfully in Isaac’s stomach. He recognizes himself in that gesture, echoes of _what are you, a boy or a dog, take it like a man!_ It almost makes him lose his courage.

There is a knife with a bone handle in her hand. She slashes away at him, blindly, and he steps away, just out of her reach.

“Isaac, watch out!” Erica cries, but her warning doesn’t stop him from tripping. His foot catches against a block of ice and he crashes down, and the girl lunges after him with a shriek. He rolls over and escapes her narrowly, and calls to mind everything that Derek and Scott and even, occasionally, Peter has taught him as he gets back on his feet. He meets her eyes and squares his jaw. Everything comes into focus, crisp and bright. He cannot let his father get the better of him.

She continues to slash at the air, hoping to scare him more than hurt. And when she gets close enought, he catches her wrist and strong-arms her, just like Derek and Scott has taught him— _Derek’s hand catching his wrist as Isaac tries striking forward bluntly, then twisting his arm until his palm goes slack, Now you try_ —he pries the knife out of her limp hand and slashes her as he pushes her away. _Try and draw first blood,_ Peter has told him at one point. _You’d be surprised how much courage it takes away._

Isaac steps away, breathing heavily but feeling like he has won this one. “It’s over,” he tells her. “Leave.”

She holds up her bloodied palm to her face, panting, and she looks even more terrified than before. “No. How could—What did you do!” She sinks to her knees. For a second Isaac has a terrible thought that she means for him to finish her, he can hear Derek’s voice in his ears ordering him to, and he stumbles away from her.

“Screw you,” she heaves out through labored breaths. Then she faints.

Isaac stares at her with cold paranoid dread, isn’t sure if it’s a ruse and what the ruse might be. “Let’s go,” he chokes out towards Erica. But she kneels by the girl’s side and checks her pulse. “Erica, let’s go! She might wake up any minute. Let’s just be gone by then.”

“Isaac,” Erica stops him, and her voice is jagged and wrong. “She’s dead.”

He stares at her dumbly. He doesn’t understand. “What?” he asks stupidly. She makes no sense.

“She’s dead,” Erica repeats and looks up at him, and her voice is a stranger’s voice, and her face is a stranger’s face.

He stares. Goes up to her and checks for pulse himself. Checks for breath, for anything. A few moments after, a cannon explodes over their heads, and his heart drops.

“No. I just—I didn’t touch her, it was a scratch!” He wants to grab the girl’s palm and show it to Erica but can’t bring himself to touch her skin. “How can she be dead? What, her heart gave out? It wasn’t me!” He looks at Erica and repeats, begging with her to agree. “It wasn’t me!”

Erica is staring at the knife in his hand. “I think it was,” she says. “I think the knife must have been poisoned.”

“What?” he exclaims again, and tosses it aside.

“Isaac, we might need it!”

“The hell we might!” he stands up and backs away, shaking his head.

Cold rolls over him in waves. It was an accident, an _accident!_

He clasps his hands over the back of his neck, fingernails digging deep, and tries to breathe through the shakes. The tiny burst of triumph he felt before is seeping out of him like a leak, and reality crashes back down. This is where they are. This is what they’re here for. This is what is left for them. And everything is spiraling towards one predetermined ending.

 

***

 

Feeling a strong hand land on his shoulder Isaac jerks away, stumbling forward, and barely keeps himself from lashing out. Erica probably thinks it’s that he’s angry, upset, but he is just so unused to it—people touching him. He is wary of hands, of how a ruffle through the hair may turn into a painful tug, of how a quickly raised arm will land even quicker.

Checking his expression, Isaac turns around and meets Erica’s annoyed stare.

“Stop blaming yourself.”

He frowns at her incredulously. “What?”

“I said, stop blaming yourself,” she repeats harshly. It sounds almost like an order.

Erica, unlike Scott, is not a soft person. She doesn’t come to him with consoling words and gentle coaxing: she expects him to shake it off and get over himself.

“If you hadn’t done what you did, one of us could have been dead instead. You did _good_ ,” she insists.

He laughs a short, ugly laugh that is devoid of humor. “Oh, you are not **_serious_** _!_ ”

“You know what I mean!” She sighs with aggravation. “You haven’t done anything reprehensible. This is just the Games.”

“What does that even mean? Just the—” he chokes up and drops his head. “Games, or no Games, I killed her!”

“Yes,” she snaps. “And now you must live with it. And not let it get to you.”

“Oh, is that all that I must do?”

“Isaac,” she steps right into his personal space, pressing her palms to his shoulders, and the look she gives him is filled unexpectedly with such exasperation and such fondness it knocks all breath out of him. “You know what I really envy about you? You have integrity.”

“Integrity?” he echoes, catching her hands and removing them from himself. “What are you talking about, Erica!” He suddenly feels profoundly weary.

“This is the Games,” she says. “It’s where you have to face terrible choices and must survive at all cost—but how you act _matters_. The way all of it will go down in the end matters. And I have no doubt that you will never do anything against your nature.”

It is the most honest she has ever been with him, the most kind. He still has both her hands in his own, and it feels like together they are holding something cherished. “I’m not really banking on an afterwards,” he says hoarsely, candidly, looking into her eyes.

She blinks away the wetness in her eyes, and says, her voice now a whisper. “Well then you better check that attitude. One of us is damned better to.” She squeezes his hands gently. “Because we deserve it. We fucking do.”

 

***

 

Half a day of following Erica around through the white vastness, freezing his ass off, and he can’t hold his tongue any longer.

“Erica, come on. We’re going the wrong way.”

“Isaac,” Erica replies in an obnoxiously cocky voice. “It’s the arena. There are no right or wrong ways.”

“There are, when we decide to return to Cornucopia because there are fire supplies there. I’m pretty sure we’re going back to the lake instead.”

“No, we are not!” she continues stomping forward, head held high. “I just took a shortcut!”

“Yeah, of course you did,” he sighs with mild irritation and catches his breath before following her. “You do love those, don’t you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she looks over her shoulder and stares daggers at him, unsure if it’s meant to be an insult.

“Just that… you’re very—” he makes a forward motion with his palm. “ _Determined_.”

She considers it for a moment theatrically. “Hmm, no,” she drawls. “I think you got the wrong word there. I think you meant to say impressive.”

He snorts in mild disbelief. “Sorry? Did you just say that you’re impressive?”

She grins and points to herself. “Aren’t I? I am very impressive.” She cocks her head and stares at his dumbfounded face and laughs.

Because she trusts him now, again, or maybe for the first time ever. Because he is no longer glum. And he laughs because she _is_ determined, and because she _is_ impressive, and because he finds it oddly easy and likable about her—that she has attitude. It makes it effortless for him to travel with her. He could not have been her protector, her older brother, but it is gratifyingly easy to follow her lead.

She bounces a few steps and then surges into a sprint for a few seconds before stopping short, spreads her arms wide and shouts to the empty woods and to the sky, “I am **_impressive!_** ”

He laughs breathlessly at this sudden outburst of antics, watching her from where she has left him, and he means to shush her and to hurry along because what if someone heard them—

—and then there is a keen whoosh of air, and her laughter dies abruptly, leaving only an echo, as arrows fly through the trees. Two of them miss Erica entirely, and one hits her in the shoulder, making her stagger and swivel, and one sinks in her chest.

_(Everything in him goes dead.)_

“ ** _Erica!_** ”

He stumbles forward in a panic, means to rush to her side, but arrows continue to fly overhead, and he dives down, hiding behind a large rock, nearly flattening himself against the ground. One of the arrows nicks his leg and he tries to curl in on himself.

“Erica?” he calls again, his voice strained, lungs squished uncomfortably against his ribs. He hangs out to catch a sight of her. Erica neither responds, nor moves.

Fear soaks through him like never before, skin tingling and wet and on fire. Not the usual dread of a watery grave that drowns his chest and makes him disoriented with blind panic, but a bursting heatwave that consumes the whole of him and blinds him with something else entirely.

“Here, kitty, kitty!” a tribute sing-songs, stepping out of the bushes. A girl—District Four, her patch says when he risks glancing out. She is clutching a crossbow.

For a few seconds Isaac just breathes, back pressed to the ragged stone, before gulping a mouthful of air and rolling out of his cover, and getting to his feet like a cat. For a split second their eyes lock. She raises her crossbow and fires. He’s already not there.

They think themselves so smart, but Isaac can hear the other one coming from behind and turns, swinging hard with his fist, knocking the boy backwards. He swirls back to face District Four again and kicks her in the shin, so hard that her leg gives way, painfully, awkwardly, and she staggers in her steps with a sharp cry. Isaac turns to the boy again—District Ten, he is still reeling from being punched in the face—and grabs the full length of his arm, swinging him around and propelling him into the girl.

They both topple to the ground. She tries to get away, her reactions still fast, but the boy barely recovers before Isaac is on top of him, fingers clenched into a fist and hitting him, pounding his face into a bloody mess. District Four gets back on her feet, eyeing him both warily and predatorily. Her crossbow is lying elsewhere and she retrieves a knife, blade gleaming between her deft fingers, and Isaac forgets all about the boy, forgets everything _she is the one it’s her fault murderer! her fault that Erica—_

Grimly, Isaac liberates a knife from District Ten’s belt—the boy moans and cries, badly hurt but still alive—and he is on his feet again. Something in his face makes the girl pause and hesitate instead of rushing fearlessly as before. But the moment she steps closer, he swings, just once, just once— _just lucky, just furious, just his father’s son!_ —

The blade slashes wetly across her throat.

He cries out—in fury and grief and helplessness and stands there, shaking and covered in sweat. He feels like he is not his own man, possessed by a rage that is burning through his very bones. He drops the knife, pushes his fingers into his hair—they are sticky with blood.

Turning his head, he finds where Erica is lying, vision spotty and unclear. Swaying like he’s drunk he stumbles back to her and drops onto his knees. Two crossbow bolts are still jutting out of her.

With a growl he pulls them out. She doesn’t cry. (Of course she doesn’t, she’s _tough_ , she clenches her teeth around her pain, doesn’t let any of it show, she’s _determined!_ Determined.)

The cannon fires twice. Isaac shuts his eyes, and his tears are burning his eyelids. He wipes them away angrily, and cradles Erica’s body tighter against himself, rocks her like she’s a small child.

“No. No, no,” he whimpers in a tight voice. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.” His chin rests atop her hair, tucking her face in the crook of his neck.

Blood is circling her neck like a string of red beads.

“Why?” he is whispering faintly, his voice like a gust of wind. “This shouldn’t have happened couldn’t have happened you can’t!—you just— ** _can’t_** _!_ ” He means to scream it, but his voice breaks, and he breaks, _but she can’t_ , and he is sobbing, his whole body shakes, flooded with hysterics, she can’t leave him, and she still makes no sound because _she can’t_.

“You can’t.”

(Behind him the boy with the broken face pulls himself together and runs-limps off. His cannon has not fired yet.)

Isaac looks at Erica’s bloodless face, pushes the hair away from her forehead. Her eyes are closed. Her mouth seems to be smiling at him, just one last time. There’s a trickle of blood welling there and he wipes it away.

It doesn’t matter, none of it matters. He’s still here. She’s just gone.

 

***

 

_“Dammit, Isaac,” Derek curses, having knocked a wooden knife out of his hand the third time in a row. “You call that defending yourself? You’re not even trying!”_

_Isaac hunches in on himself and doesn’t answer. Knows not to try. It is not so much a memory as a deep-seated knowledge within him, from the times when he is a boy and he tries to talk to his father—to answer, to reason, to explain himself… All it did was make the man hit him that much harder._

_(“Oh, you’re talking back now, well how about a little alone time, then, huh, Isaac?” And he is screaming and he is kicking and his father’s merciless hands drag him over to the freezer, and, “What do you think now, huh? Look what you made me do! Look what you **made me do!** Boys should be punished for speaking out of turn!”)_

_“Derek, could you—handle that other thing for me?” Scott’s voice, as always, is deceptively calm and kind. Derek grumbles something but abides and leaves. It makes Isaac feel not safer, but worse—being faced with Scott’s disappointment instead._

_“I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is dull, a little uncaring—because he knows how apologies are meaningless. You gotta pay for mistakes, that’s just the way of things. But there’s an ache in his chest, of shame and resentment and need, and he has been telling himself he will not trust any of them, will not like any of them, but he likes Scott McCall and hates, **hates** being this failure._

_(“How many do you deserve for it, boy?” his father asks, weighing his belt in his hand. “Hmm? What date is it today? Seventeenth? Seventeen is such a nice number,” he whispers against Isaac’s ear before straightening and then lowering the belt across Isaac’s back with all his might.)_

_Scott watches him for a few moments, and there is something very harsh about his face._

_“Isaac. There is nothing wrong with not getting it,” he says. “The only reason Derek’s angry is because he wants you to succeed. Because knowing this might save your life one day soon.” He watches Isaac’s face and doesn’t say anything else._

_Isaac waits for something other than that, waits for a ‘but’—and he is waiting in vain. Nothing else is coming, and Scott smiles at him, all reassurance and sincerity, and Isaac cannot—he honest to God tries but cannot fathom it, that there are circumstances when your mistakes are not an armament in someone else’s hands._

_Mistakes do not get unpunished. They just don’t._

 

***

 

He **_welcomes_** the pain.

He deserves it, deserves all of it— _stupid boy, worthless waste of space_ —his father should have beaten him to death, then none of this would have been happening.

The skin of his knuckles is torn, bleeding, and he is punching at the bark of a tree, anger ripping him at the seams. He wants to feel it all: all the rage, all the grief, all the want, all the fear—to remind himself that he’s still here.

_He’s still here._

Him. Isaac. Not the ghost of his father—except he can never escape being that, and _nothing_ about what he has done is truly surprising. He has known, he has always known that this would happen, sooner than later.

 _Rage is a potent weapon,_ Derek told him. _Use it if you can._

Derek, who also knew how to control his anger. And Isaac always knew that he wouldn’t be able to. That he would lose his head, become the one thing he has feared, has promised himself he wouldn’t be, wouldn’t let the Games make him into—his father. _You won’t do anything against your nature,_ Erica told him. And he doesn’t. It has simply always been inside him, this blemish. He just succumbs. He is his father’s son.

The anger has not gone out yet, filling him to the brim, and he is raging against _everything_ that has happened to him, like there are lightnings shooting through his body.

He cuts his knuckles against the tree until another fit of crying overtakes him, until he crashes into the trunk with his whole body, hugs it and presses his forehead against it, and hits his forehead against it, and tries to cry, and sobs dryly, empty of tears.

He waits for hours for the hovercraft to come. He fully expects the boy with the broken face to track him down but he never does. He carries Erica away, onto the top of the hill, and you can see Cornucopia from here—because she needs to make it there too, he needs her to make it. He needs not to see them picked up together, his friend and her killer.

When it finally comes, plucks her out of her snowy grave, he watches it go, stunned at how raw and unprepared he is for it. For death. He has lived surrounded by it always, reminded of it by the gravestones he sees every day, by the Games he witnesses every year, knowing that this will be the outcome, prepared for this loss, for every loss, and then it comes and he isn’t ready, and there is still so much to say.

He understands now, palpably and truly, that Scott has carried out from his Games a burden of enormous guilt, and Derek is filled with impossible rage. Himself, if he ever does walk out from this, he will be filled with unceasing regret.

_He’s still here he’s not here he’s not **she** should be here he is someone else somewhere else he’s_

_not here at all._

 

***

 

The room has been scrubbed clean and is in a pristine condition. There’s virtually no difference between the quarters occupied by Erica and Isaac. That this one feels like it still carries something of Isaac’s presence is only in his mind.

There’s a knock on the door. “Scott?”

Scott is sprawled spread-eagle on what used to be Isaac’s bed. He sighs, unprepared for any verbal battles, but hiding from people is not what he does.

“Yeah?” he answers. He doesn’t move from where he is lying, completely unconcerned with how he might appear.

The door opens. Stiles hangs in the doorway, arms crossed on his chest, looking at him.

“You okay?” he not so much asks as demands.

Scott’s not okay, but he doesn’t want to say it. Doesn’t want to lie either. In the end his prolonged silence speaks volumes, he supposes.

“Not really.”

Stiles steps inside and closes the door again, leaning against it with his back. “What are you thinking?”

Scott considers it for another moment of prolonged silence. What he’s thinking he’s not sure he can put into words. Stiles unglues himself from the door and comes to sit by Scott’s side, perching himself on the corner of the bed, careful not to disturb him. Scott rubs his face, feeling like it’s covered with a gauze of sorts, clouding his eyes and stifling his breath.

“Why am I such an idiot?”

Stiles shrugs candidly. “ _I_ don’t know,” he says, in a _what are you asking me for?_ manner.

Scott snorts and tears his eyes away from the ceiling to look at him. “That’s not really how you’re supposed to answer these questions,” he laughs breathlessly.

“Right! Sorry! Ehem,” Stiles squares his shoulders and exclaims theatrically, “What are you talking about, Scott! You’re not an idiot! What ever made you—uh—ta-ah-talk like—think l—this way!” He huffs out an annoyed sigh. “Sorry. Messed that up.”

Scott’s grinning at him, feeling a smidgeon better, which he supposes is a start.

“It’s Isaac,” he confesses, or he feels like he’s confessing, even though he doesn’t say anything extraordinary.

Which is why Stiles responds with, “Well, yeah. What else would it be.”

And Scott feels oddly like he’s floating, or maybe falling, or full on drowning. He strokes his face again, finding the movement somehow sobering.

“I really need him to come back,” he says, not taking his hands away from his face, and his voice comes out muffled and ghostly.

“Of course,” Stiles nods, and sure, that’s nothing new either. “‘Specially now that Erica is…” he trails off.

“No, I really—I _need_ him to come back.” He flips to his side and stares at Stiles and needs him to get it, if only so that Stiles could tell him why the hell he feels this way. “He’s not just like any other tribute, okay?”

“Why?” Stiles frowns. And isn’t that the question. Scott sure as hell doesn’t have an answer to that one.

“I don’t—‘cause he’s not.”

Stiles makes a face at him. “Oh yeah, you’ll have to come up with something better than that. What is going on?”

“Well, you know how he is!” Flustered, Scott runs a hand through his hair.

Stiles continues to look at him funny. “Pretty sure I have no idea.”

Scott sits up and rubs the back of his neck, feeling clogged up with disquiet. “Well, I mean—what with his father and—God, can you even imagine?” Scott tries not to. It is not his place to wonder about it. But sometimes he remembers, like a stab of a thick needle, and his heartbeat speeds up painfully. “He’s led such an unhappy life. He deserves to come back and have another one. A better one.”

“You want to take care of him,” Stiles says softly.

“No!” Scott objects immediately, and flings his head back onto the pillow in exasperation. He’s trying to say it like it is, but words don’t seem to align like he wants them to. He knows Stiles doesn’t mean anything bad by it, but that’s—that’s just _not it_.

“That’s my job. That’s who I am, I _always_ want to take care of them. I wanna protect them, and I—I pity them, and I feel so ashamed that they have to live through this, and I wish that they all would come back. That always happens.”

_It just wouldn’t be reason enough._

“So then, what?” Stiles prods him.

“They matter,” Scott says simply. In his mind’s eye he thinks of Danny’s infectious smile, and Boyd’s eloquent silences, and Erica’s arrogant posturing, and how he imagined all of them back in the common room again, safe, sitting alongside of Derek and him as mentors. “They all _matter,_ ” he repeats quietly. “And I don’t. Take me out of the equation, it makes no difference if it’s me.”

“Scott, come on—” Stiles tries protesting, and Scott is already interrupting him impatiently.

“No, I _know_ that I matter, as a person, to you, and back home, to my mom, and sure, to Derek, Lydia… But I’m talking about the Games. Then I don’t. I’m impersonal, I’m just a mentor—and I am _fine_ with that. I know that about myself, that I _like_ feeling needed.”

But he also knows that it’s a one way street. Knows the difference between supporting, and coddling, and enabling.

“Okay?” Stiles acquiesces carefully. Scott hangs his head and sighs, trying to find his way back to his original point through the muddy water of his sloppy reasoning.

“You know, Allison used to laugh about that in me. Used to _love_ it and—” he pauses, his smile slipping into something crooked, “—well, I guess, after a while she started to hate it, too. That I care too much, that—I think after she came back I made her feel like she needed fixing.”

 _‘Smothered’_ is the word he’s looking for. She needed him to be sterner, afterwards. And he’s never been very good at that.

“And then Isaac,” he hurries past the thought, “he just didn’t care. We teach them the aspire to surviving. That nothing else matters except that they live. But I could see it right from the start—he was resigned to dying. And I needed to make him believe otherwise, to change that about him.” Scott shakes his head. “He just didn’t care about his own life enough. But—” he stops because giving it the solid shape of words makes the whole thing even more astonishing. “Instead he chose me. Cared who I was. And I—”

For a second his own mind betrays him, and he thinks about Allison, a fleeting memory rushing through his mind, and he shakes his head like he can dislodge it, and he doesn’t voice it out loud, but they both know it—that in the end the Games mattered to her more than he did.

“I forgot how it feels,” he whispers. “To matter to a person.” He snorts at himself and buries his face in his palms. “It probably sounds so stupid—or selfish, but I—he gave it back to me, that feeling. And that’s what it is. Not because he’s my tribute, or my District, or because I need a project. I am a mentor. That’s all my life is now.” He looks at Stiles and his words taste strangely like freedom. “He made me want more.”

He can feel his scalp burning where Stiles is staring at him. He doesn’t dare look up and see into his face. “Holy shit,” Stiles mutters, and Scott isn’t sure he knows what he means by that. He feels suddenly overwhelmingly exhausted.

He drops his head back onto the pillow and closes his eyes. He can feel Stiles’s comforting presence though. And somewhere far away, he imagines, he can feel Isaac’s too.

 

***

 

The emptiness spreads in his chest like an ugly disease. Like an anchor of a very different sort, threatening to pull him down, and under, and drown him.

He crawls up the trail, no longer determined nor upbeat, and finds effort even in existing. The snow is hungry and deep, and every step is a struggle, feet getting buried instantly, and his legs burn and tremble with fatigue. Sweat is soaking him from neck down, hanging in tiny icicles from his collar.

Sometimes he sinks into the snow up to his knees, up to his thighs, and for the first time he thinks he shouldn’t fight the water when it finds him, should just drown. The desire to give up is rotting inside his throat. Instead he clutches his fist, angrily and stubbornly, around the little wolf pendant around his neck, and thinks of Scott, and wraps himself around that thought like a frame, like a crutch.

He claws his way out of the snow. He isn’t sure if that’s an achievement or cowardice.

 

***

 

He remembers the girl from her Reaping broadcasts: she reminded him of a chimera mutt, all litheness and hiding in the scenery. Lying asleep in the snow, she hasn’t done a very good job of it. Lying asleep in the show, she looks already dead.

There is a pelt around her shoulders. District Seven are woodmen, huntsmen. She must have had her fair share of hunting done. The fur is not large enough to be an impervious protection against the frost but it’s a whole lot more than he’s got going for himself. Some of his fingers have begun to grow gray and waxen-like.

(He ought to get up and walk away.)

 _It’s the Games,_ he tells himself. _It’s what you came here for. Just like your father. You’re just like your father._

She doesn’t even know, doesn’t wake up when he does it. She is not afraid, it is a mercy, _it is not a mercy, you’re just sick, you have it in your blood, in your heart, you don’t really have a heart, she told you to keep your integrity, but you’re just like your father, aren’t you, who are you if you’re not your father’s son, what would Scott think, murderer murderer you should have died in the little icy box of yours you always knew it would have been better for everyone you’re just a waste of space, Isaac Lahey, his father’s son_.

Isaac tugs the pelt from her shoulders and buries himself in its warmth and leaves her behind. He is warm, and his body is grateful, and when the cannon fires he falls down onto his knees, and retches emptily, wrapping the furs around himself, and cries.

Why is he still here?

 

***

 

They say the past flashes before your eyes when you die. He imagines it as a vortex of memories that swallows you.

When Isaac closes his eyes, he sees his future instead. The current of every way his life could have happened but never will.

Most of the time he feels like there’s a hole in his chest, possessed by callousness and deadness.

Grief is irrelevant. Rage is wasteful. Faith is stupid, blind, and oh so exquisite.

 

***

 

He is struggling out of the muck that lives inside of him, the void occupied by his father, and killing those tributes, and Erica’s sleeping-dying in his arms, and a million of other dreadful things. He feels it like an ocean of garbage and debris around him, like a wall of endless water in his anxious nightmares, and he emerges out of it so hard he jams his skull into the tree he’s been pressed against.

 _Dreaming_. Only dreaming. He doesn’t even remember falling asleep.

There’s a soft tinkling sound that must have broken his sleep. Isaac looks up to find a silver parachute descending towards him. He freezes, panic thick in his throat. He should feel relieved, feel grateful, but instead draws his knees up to his chin, not letting the pod touch his legs as it lands, like it’s somehow threatening. The pod drops into the snow and keeps blinking at him, and Isaac is blinking back.

If he closes his eyes, there’s a place where Erica is trapped inside the tight walls of his freezer, and the girl from District Seven is pouring blood into his mouth until he cannot breathe. If he closes his eyes, he’ll be there with them, and he should just do it. He reaches out and picks the small package up instead.

Inside is medicine against frostbite. Isaac stares at it, and the pod keeps blinking. And his back hits the trunk of the tree again. And he slides forward and deeper into the snow and sniffles, screwing his eyes shut, fists tearing into his hair. He doesn’t feel most of his frostbitten fingers anymore, and this ought to help him, might even save him. Isaac clutches the vial tightly to his chest, and then drops his hand, and lets it roll out into the snow, and watches it blink at him, a promise and a burden.

He does not recall how many tributes are left. But it’s not a question of whether he can survive them anymore. It’s a question of whether he should.

He tenses, head snapping up, as he hears branches crackling nearby. He’s not alone here—but the thought doesn’t fill him with nearly as much dread as it used to. Passively, Isaac delays standing up, and then the tribute is suddenly upon him, swinging a sword, an actual _sword_. He lunges at Isaac, wielding it as a spear, and Isaac rolls away just as the metal collides with the bark, raining splinters.

Pain is blossoming in his right side—Isaac isn’t sure where the sword has cut and how deep, but it has, and he hunches around the pain and is afraid to look. Staggering backwards, he pulls himself up against another tree, breathing heavily.

“Fight me, coward!” the boy demands. He is District Two. The sword in his hands, white with winter, red with blood, seems to possess an eager thirst of his own. Like _it_ is wielding the boy, and not the proper way around. Isaac stares back at him, mute and immobile.

Inside of him is a struggle. There’s the sheer panic, and his frail humanity, and the burning screaming instinct to survive. And there’s District Seven’s coat on his shoulders. And District Four’s dying gasp. And Erica’s last laugh.

District Two growls and lunges at him again, swinging his blade wide, like he wants to cut him in two. Isaac staggers backwards and finally tries running, but stumbles after only a few steps and falls face flat into the snow.

And everything in him tells him to fight. And everything in him tells him not to fight.

 

***

 

Eyes covered and ears shut, he tries to contain inside the hope that he will make it, that he will see the skyline of District Five again. That they will see each other again.

“Please,” he says, and also, “Don’t. No.”

He has never before thought of running away, but today he does. He doesn’t know where up and down is any more.

He won’t accept anything else.

 

***

 

Snow is burning his buried arms up to the elbows. Isaac is afraid of pushing himself up, afraid to see his blood spilling out of him in rivers. Snow creaks behind his back under the feet of the District Two tribute.

Isaac looks up.

The vial with the medicine is not two feet away from him, right before his eyes but just outside of reach. It is slowly melting the snow around it, and it looks to be glowing, and it has Scott written all over—not just because Isaac cannot imagine anyone but him bartering with sponsors, but because of the heat. The warmth is Scott’s.

And all Isaac thinks about, (suddenly, angrily,) is how much time, how many words have been **_wasted_** between them.

Thinks about Scott’s many masks and how he barely got to look underneath them.

The way he smiled, not fake, but for Isaac, for real, lips stretching crookedly, little wrinkles dancing around the eyes. The sound of his wry amused chuckling.

The way Scott’s palm covered Isaac’s own.

Unexpectedly, uselessly, Isaac can think of nothing else but the things he doesn’t know about Scott. Things he never had time to learn.

If his fingers are longer than Isaac’s. What shape his nails are. If he is ticklish anywhere.

Which childhood dreams he remembers most. What nightmares from the Games keep him from falling asleep.

What the names of his parents are.

His favorite season. Favorite color. Favorite spot in the District.

What shapes he sees in the clouds.

_(If he still loves the girl from District Two, and if she is still his anchor.)_

Isaac didn’t have enough time—there’s never enough time—but finally he thinks of when he was drowning in his mind and Scott held him up, and when Isaac couldn’t sleep before the Games, and of Scott’s hand over his own, and he wants to feel the strength of his arms one more time, letting Isaac crash against him and shatter like a wave against a rock. Letting him crumble at Scott’s feet, letting him drop his forehead against Scott’s shoulder, and have no more fears, and think no more thoughts. And he is choked with the chunk of grief over all he’s missing. _Has been_ missing. Has _wasted_. _Will_ now miss.

(His hand slowly travels to his belt, past the painfully leaking part, and he frees a knife—a small weapon compared to a sword, but it can be deadly in his hand.)

That he’s been latching onto his father, onto the knot of his dependence and resentment of him, and he has done wrong by himself, and kept latching onto him still.

That Scott’s the only one he should have been holding onto all this time.

That he wants to have memorized Scott’s face and fears he’s already forgetting it.

That he wants to live a full life alongside all those people back at his District and call them his family.

(He flips onto his back, leaving a trail of red, and his side’s on fire, and he ploughs through the pain, staring at the District Two boy with a defiant thrust of a chin he adopted from Erica.)

That he is not ready to die after all.

 

***

 

Scott remembers standing on the balcony after Allison has won her Games. Weak with relief and a painful sort of joy. Stumbling out onto the roof and just crying. Because it was Allison, because she was alive. For all that she has done, to them and to others, he still loved her.

And for all that she has done, he was filled with powerless rage, and he cried because he hated her too. Because his anger could no longer be eclipsed by his affection. One day he might be able to forgive her, but he could never forget. The pain stretched out between them and settled in his bones like old ash.

This is not remotely like that, but a lot like that too in a warped sort of way. He is grabbing at the railings helplessly, and he’s hiding, because until he doesn’t know it hasn’t really happened, and he can keep the hope alive, cruelly, uselessly, in his head. He wipes his eyes ineffectually—he doesn’t remember how to cry, or how to stop; he hasn’t done it in years.

Stiles says nothing, just allows him to let it all out, wet shaking breaths, like he always has, rubbing his back in soothing circles while Scott is struggling to pull himself together.

“Scott?”

They both turn, and Derek stands in the doorway, and Scott can’t say if his expression is obscurely morbid or infuriatingly blank—but he does know it must be all over.

“You should come back inside.”

Scott searches his face and cannot ask, but it pulses in his head like a vein, that one question, the only question. Has he won?

_Has he won? Has he won?_

 

***

 

_He is still here._


End file.
